A Voice Cries Out
by aMUSEment345
Summary: The BAU is summoned to a case that hits close to home for Reid. Or does it? Set in the 'Soundings' universe.
1. Chapter 1

**The BAU is summoned to a case that hits close to home for Reid. Or does it? Set in the 'Soundings' universe.**

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 1**

"Bye guys! See you tonight!" _I hope._

JJ waved to her children as Karen shooed them into the house. Henry would be catching the bus to school, but Rosie and Casey would be spending the day with their long time sitter.

Although she'd been back to work full time for well over a year, JJ still had the occasional yearning to spend long stretches of days with her offspring. And then she would remember how she'd felt when she'd had those days…..the exhaustion, the chaos, the hunger for adult conversation.

_The grass is always greener, I guess._

She hoped their luck would hold. It didn't happen all the time, but this year the nation's serial killers seemed to be taking the holidays off. It was their team's turn to stand down, so she and Spence had been able to use their vacation time starting before Christmas and going right through New Year's Day. The quietness of the season seemed to be keeping them in town for an unusually long period of time. Both parents were enjoying the evenings at home with their children.

She pulled into the lot just ahead of David Rossi, who deposited his Lexus SUV into the spot next to hers.

"And how is the mother of my favorite goddaughter this fine morning?"

"Fine, thanks. As is Rosie." She offered it before he had a chance to ask.

"And my favorite big brother to my favorite goddaughter?" Rossi had become careful to ask after Henry as well.

"He's great. He's all excited because Spence is bringing him to the Air and Space Museum again this weekend. They're going to the IMAX and Henry _loves_ the IMAX."

Rossi chuckled. "Something tells me his father loves it as well."

JJ smiled. "He does. And even if he didn't, he'd love it because Henry does."

They were nearing the entrance to the building, and pulled out their badges for swiping.

"He's a good man, young JJ. A good dad. I didn't get to _be_ one, but I _had_ one. And I recognize one when I see him."

JJ squeezed Rossi's arm in thanks. "He is. To both of the kids. They have his heart, and he has theirs."

"As it should be my dear, as it should be."

* * *

They'd been summoned to the round table room, indicating to all of the BAU members that their luck had run out. They had a case.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to Sin City. No, not Sin-to-Win City." Garcia aimed the latter comment at Emily Prentiss. "I was referring to the Sin City from which our resident genius arose. We're going to Las Vegas."

Reid hadn't been back to Vegas since his mother died. Without a family reason to visit, the city held no real draw for him. There were a few pleasant childhood memories, but they were far outweighed by difficult ones. For Reid, the word 'home' referred only to the one he shared with JJ and their children.

Garcia continued with her case presentation. "It seems someone has become fond of the tax man in Vegas. Or, better said, someone has developed a _taste _for the tax man."

"Vegas and taxes seem like a match made in heaven…or hell," observed a wry David Rossi. "Between the winners trying to hide their winnings, and the losers trying to write them off, there's plenty of work... but most of it is illegal."

"Well, what's happening in Vegas now is even more illegal. And definitely not made in heaven." Garcia hit a button on the remote, and a gruesome image came up on the screen. She studiously kept her back to it.

"You are looking at….tell me if it's not up there, because I am definitely not looking at it again….you're looking at an image of what remains of Stephen Davidovitch, who was a fellow employee of the federal government. He worked out of the Las Vegas Bureau of the IRS until his retirement about six months ago. His daughter reported him missing only two weeks ago, so there's a gap in time that's unaccounted for until yesterday, when his remains were found in the desert north of the city. _Most_ of his remains. Everything except his heart and his tongue. And…" She couldn't suppress a shiver, "…his tongue…or the stump of it….had bite marks."

"There are any number of carnivores in the desert. It wouldn't take long for the animals to find him." Reid was very familiar with the area surrounding Vegas.

"Ah, my sweet genius. I only wish. The animal that found him was two-legged. They were human bite marks."

"Human?" Emily wondered, "Could he have bit it himself? Maybe 'in extremis'?"

Hotch was already familiar with the sketchy details of the case. "The bite arc doesn't match the victim's teeth."

"Is that how he was identified, Pen?" asked JJ. "Dental records?"

"Exactly. They'll attempt a DNA match with the daughter to confirm."

Garcia held the remote in her hand. "There's something else. More ickiness. His heart..."

"Oh, no...don't tell me the unsub bit that out too." Morgan voiced what none of them wanted to hear. Garcia clicked the remote and the photo on the screen changed.

"Well, technically, he didn't bite it _out_... It seemed to have been cut out with some kind of instrument. Serrated, so possibly a knife. But there was a bit of…..tissue…left at the scene. Which looked like it had been... masticated."

She was proud of her use of professional language. But Morgan was less impressed.

"Masticated?" He sounded almost teasing.

"Alright. It was chewed. It seems like the unsub was eating the victim's heart as well."

Reid was squinting at the photo on the smartboard. "It does look like it was chewed. But it doesn't look regurgitated. It doesn't look discolored or eaten away, as it would be with stomach acid."

"So you think the unsub just chewed it and spit it out without swallowing?" Morgan wanted clarification.

Emily tried to shiver the image away. "Ugh! But not as 'ugh' as if he'd actually swallowed it." Now Garcia and JJ joined her in shivering their disgust.

The idea of cannibalism prompted Reid to comment. "Hey, do you remember that case where the unsub made a stew..."

Prompting simultaneous cries of "Spence!" "Reid!" "Kid!" And a heavy-browed stare from Hotch.

"Sorry."

As distasteful as it was, the implications were clear, and they had to consider what the unsub's methods might mean.

"Are we sure we have just the one victim?"

Cannibalism suggested the kind of ritualism characteristic of serial killers. But JJ wanted to know if there was more than just suggestion pulling the BAU into the case.

Hotch fielded that one. "Yes…and no. A second employee of the IRS office failed to report to work about two months ago. There wasn't anything that made it look criminal until they found our victim's remains. And…and they're not sure this is related at all…. there was also a tax attorney who apparently disappeared about three months ago."

"Apparently? Don't tell me, let me guess, " ventured Rossi. "No one missed the attorney at all." Gaining a chuckle from several of the others.

"Garcia, when was Davidovitch last seen?" Reid was trying to create a timeline.

Her response told him he would be stymied. "The last we've been able to put together was his retirement dinner. The poor guy was a loner in a city of loners. He was divorced, and not close to his children. His daughter only realized something was wrong when she didn't hear from him for the holidays."

"No one saw this guy for the past six months? No one talked to him?" Morgan didn't believe it.

Hotch fielded this one. "No one who's been identified so far. As you can see, we're being pulled into the case early, with only the single definite victim. LVPD, Nevada State Police, and our Las Vegas office are still actively developing leads."

"Or so we hope," added the sardonic Rossi.

"I suppose they've already tried to tie the IRS guys and the tax attorney together?" Prentiss followed the natural train of thought.

"They have. And there are seventeen cases in common between the attorney in question and the two IRS workers," advised Hotch. "So, Garcia…"

"Right. I'll get busy whittling it down. Happy flying!" Squeezing Morgan's shoulder as she passed by him, Garcia clicked her way out of the conference room.

Hotch acknowledged the urgency of a case where there were missings who might still be rescued, however unlikely that scenario.

"Wheels up in thirty."

* * *

JJ spent ten of her thirty minutes connecting with Karen and then with her parents. Since their move to the DC area following the loss of their home to an arson fire, the elder Jareaus had become the preferred babysitters whenever Reid and JJ were away on a case.

"Don't you worry about a thing, Honey. Your father and I are happy to take care of them. It keeps us young, you know."

JJ snorted. "More like it wears you out. But you know how grateful Spence and I are to know they're with you. I think it helps them to think it's sort of normal, you know?"

"It's _our_ normal, sweetheart. And I think it's good for Henry."

They'd all been concerned about the little boy, who'd suffered so many losses, and near losses, in his young life. He'd responded very well to having his grandparents living in town. For Henry, the time spent with Sandy and Charles Jareau was simply a visit with his grandparents, similar to the experience of so many of his friends. When he was with them, he could forget that his parents were away. Or so it seemed.

Reid filed onto the plane shortly after JJ, having driven over with Morgan. The two men had been conversing with the Vegas FBI office and waved the others to go on ahead.

"Did you reach them?" Reid asked as he slipped into the seat next to JJ.

"Yes. Karen will take them after school today as usual, as Dad is out on the golf course."

They both smiled at that. Charles Jareau had been far too busy maintaining his homestead when he'd lived in Pennsylvania. Now, sharing a townhouse condo with his wife, his time was rapidly becoming consumed with new hobbies.

"I'll bet he's mad that he only discovered golf in retirement." The game held no interest for Reid, but Rossi had shared his personal experience with the sport.

JJ chuckled. "Yeah, Mom says she's a 'golf widow' now. But I think she's really becoming a widow to some of his volunteer activities." Charles had also become a mentor to several teens and young men.

Reid laughed. "There's no way. You know she won't let him do that on his own. She'll be there, right alongside him, cooking up a storm to fatten them up." He'd been on ongoing target for his mother-in-law's culinary ministrations.

"You're right. Except I don't think she's done with you yet." JJ patted her husband's still-too-thin middle.

She changed the subject. "Spence, we haven't been back to Vegas since your Mom died. Will it be hard for you?"

He took a moment before shaking his head. "I have a new home now. And it's been a long time since I've had a home in Vegas. Bennington was certainly never 'home' to me."

JJ squeezed her husband's hand before Hotch got the case discussion restarted. "Still….talk to me if you need to, okay?"

He smiled his thanks at the woman who always seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

"Okay."

* * *

There was little new information to be had. Las Vegas PD, Nevada State Police and the FBI were all actively conducting interviews and searching for the missing IRS agent and tax attorney. After distributing assignments for ground work after they landed, Hotch set them all to reviewing various aspects of the case, and the players, on-line. Reid was absorbed in a study of the taxation of Vegas high rollers when Hotch approached him individually.

"Reid."

The younger man looked up at his unit chief.

"Yes?"

Hotch looked….hesitant. It was so unlike the usually assured FBI man that it unsettled Reid.

"I've….had a phone call. There's a new complication to the case."

"Okay…what is it?" Reid enjoyed these challenges. They got his intellectual juices flowing. Especially when the challenge was something Hotch assigned to him, in particular.

"There's been another person reported missing. Another tax attorney."

"Okay. So, that pretty much confirms that taxes are somehow the connection in all of this. Although exactly how is unclear. For instance, unless the unsub used different attorneys in different tax years, the relationship between the two missing tax attorneys may or may not be coincidental. Unless there's another aspect to this that we're…."

"Reid."

"…missing. But that would mean we need to connect the IRS agents and the tax attorneys in some other way, and the odds of that are…"

"Reid." More forceful now. The way he sounded when he wanted Reid to cease and desist his ramblings. Reid recognized it.

"Sorry. What is it?"

"Reid….the newly missing tax attorney…..it's William Reid. It's your father."


	2. Chapter 2

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 2**

Curious about why Hotch would need to speak with her husband alone, JJ watched the interaction from the other end of the plane. Hotch was facing her, his features their usual mask of professionality. But even looking only at the back of him, she could tell that Reid was reacting to something. A stiffening of his spine, the turning away of his head. Hotch seemed to say something more to him, and Reid nodded. Whereupon the unit chief signaled JJ to come up the aisle and join them.

"What is it?" Anxiety was already present in her voice as she looked at her husband, who was staring into the ether.

"There's been another tax attorney reported missing. William Reid."

JJ's eyes flew wide, and then sought Spence's. He felt her gaze on him and turned to look at her as she took the seat beside him.

"Spence?"

He just shook his head, and remarked in a low, soft voice, "He disappeared once before. Maybe he's just disappeared again."

JJ looked back to Hotch, passing an unstated question. _Could he be right? Could it simply be a coincidence?_

Hotch caught the look and responded aloud. "There's no other indication that anything untoward has happened to him. But his office reports he's never missed a day of work, and his secretary keeps his travel calendar. It was so different from his usual that the office notified the police within hours of his failing to show to work. They'd heard about the other cases from the media."

Reid cleared his throat. "Did the police perform a welfare check?"

Hotch nodded. "Yes. And there was nothing out of place. At least, nothing obvious. No signs of a struggle."

"Was his car there?" JJ joined them in beginning to work this aspect of the case.

"It wasn't…which may be a good sign." Hotch's movement toward the aisle signaled that he wanted to end the conversation. He explained. "I know you may need some time to absorb this. And neither of you has to work this case. It would be understandable if you wanted to step back…."

He seemed to be waiting for their response. The two young profilers exchanged a look and a squeeze of hands.

Reid responded for both of them. "We're in. I need to be a part of this Hotch. After everything…I owe him. From the last case that involved him."

Both Hotch and JJ knew Reid was referring to the cold case that had haunted his dreams back before Henry was born. The case that had Reid erroneously accusing his father of the murder of a young child. The case that, however briefly, turned Diana and William Reid back into a unified front, Reid's mother coming to the defense of his father. That Diana abstained from her antipsychotic medication for the sake of her son understanding his father's innocence had greatly impacted Reid.

He'd apologized. But he'd not forgiven. His memories of the hardships he'd suffered with his mother were simply too vivid for the adult Spencer Reid to forget them. It wasn't until he'd assumed the responsibility of fatherhood himself, and known the uncertainty and the struggle to do the right thing, that Spencer could even begin to entertain the thought of forgiving his father.

And then, with the strong encouragement of JJ, he'd done it. Alone, as a solitary exercise, he'd rid himself of the venom and resentment he'd felt for so many years. He'd forgiven his father for displaying weakness when called upon for strength. For not being able to confront his wife's illness, nor raise his son alone. He forgave William Reid for being who he was.

But he'd never communicated any of this to William. Reid had let go of the poison inside him for his own sake and that of his new family. But he still hadn't wanted William Reid back in his personal life.

Now the man had been inserted right into the middle of his son's _professional_ life. There was, it seemed, no escaping William Reid.

* * *

Only Rossi and Morgan had met Reid's father during that prior Las Vegas trip. Morgan's impression of the man had been flavored by his righteous anger at the upset of his 'little brother'. Rossi remembered him as a small man, in every sense of the word.

All of them were appropriately shocked at the idea of a family member having fallen victim to an unsub, no matter how venerated…or unvenerated….that family member was. Linked in via the computer, Garcia gushed her sympathy.

"Oh, my sweet, gentle, baby genius, I'm so sorry! I wish I could hug you right through this screen!"

"Thanks, Garcia."

Reid and JJ sat on the long seat across from the others. Emily reached over and patted her good friend's leg. She had a love/hate relationship with her own mother. But, she knew, although she may have been ignored for her mother's ambassadorial duties, she'd never been abandoned. She could only imagine the emotional turmoil Reid must be experiencing now, possibly having lost someone who had so pointedly tried to lose him.

Hotch felt a word of caution was in order. "He's only been reported missing, so far. We don't know that he's been taken. All of the agencies involved are operating out of an abundance of caution."

"When was he last seen? Do we know?" Taking his cue from Reid, Morgan stepped back emotionally and started analyzing the facts.

Hotch had been briefed from the ground. "Last week was New Year's, so it was an abbreviated work week. He apparently took a long weekend, so was off from Tuesday evening."

"And today's Monday. So it could be as long as five days, if he was taken right after work," posited Emily. "Or he could have been taken at any point along the way."

"Or he could not have been taken at all," reminded Rossi.

"Garcia?" Hotch had already given her several tasks.

"Sir! No credit card activity from December 31-New Year's Eve-and that one was for a florist." She seemed to be done, but then they heard a "hmmm" on the other end of the line.

"What is it, Baby Girl?"

"Oh….just that he ordered flowers on December 23 and then again on the 31st."

The romantic implications were obvious, until JJ spoke. "I think the December 23 order was probably the one he sent to us. We got an arrangement on Christmas Eve."

As had happened the prior year as well. It had been the receipt of one of those arrangements that had sent Reid into his crisis of conscience regarding his father, and his ultimate forgiveness of the man.

The others were surprised at JJ's statement.

"He sent you a flower arrangement? Are you back on good terms?" Morgan directed his question to Reid.

"He sends things, sometimes. He sent flowers last year at Christmas, and he sent something when Rosie was born. But he's not back in my life, no." Said with vehemence.

It was a private thing between husband and wife. But now JJ felt compelled to explain, for the sake of the case.

"I've reached out to him a couple of times. Obviously, he wouldn't have known about Rosie if I hadn't. And he's sent a card, or flowers…but he's never called. Never tried to visit."

It had been a point of contention between JJ and Spence. That she would have taken the liberty to contact his father without running it by him had been risky. And he had, in fact, been upset with her. But he'd also realized her wisdom, when William's response had led to the evening in which he'd finally expunged himself of the deep seated anger. It had been cleansing. And it had happened only because of the love of his wife. Recalling that, Reid reached over and squeezed her hand.

Hotch could feel the emotions rising, and sought to tamp them back down. Emotional impetus often served a positive role in a case. But the wrong kind, or the impetus introduced too early, could derail things entirely. He would try to bring them back on track.

"So we know he...or someone using his credit card," Hotch was cautious in his analysis..."was operating freely as recently as five days ago. Garcia, when will you be able to tell us the other recipient of the flowers?"

Not 'will you', but 'when will you'. Garcia heard the vote of confidence in the phrasing, and tried to exude her thanks over their virtual connection. Mostly because she was about to disappoint her unit chief.

"Sir. The good news is that the shop will be open by the time you arrive. The bad news is that they apparently still have a paper system for the delivery end of the operation. So there's nothing for me to look at. It will have to be done via phone or an in-person visit."

Hotch thought for a moment. "All right. Forget the earlier assignments."

He had to walk a fine line here. The BAU was being called in to assist in finding the person who'd murdered Stephen Davidovitch. There was no definitive evidence that the disappearance of William Reid was connected to that case. The unit chief could only justify the diversion of his resources on the theory that William's situation _might_ prove to be connected. He _might_ be the most recently taken victim, and he _might_ still be alive. But until or unless they could connect the two cases, they would have to spread themselves very thin.

"Morgan and Reid, you're with the florist. Dave, JJ….you'll go to his home. Prentiss and I will set up at the FBI office and then go to his place of work. We'll conference via phone after that, and then go back to the original assignments. Unless we've turned up a viable lead."

Reid started to object, thinking the florist would prove to be the least likely to be helpful. But a look from JJ silenced him. Once they'd moved back to their seats for landing, she explained.

"He obviously wants to defuse anything you might be feeling, Spence. And at least I'll be at your father's home. I should be able to pick up on anything significant. If there's something Rossi and I don't understand, I'm sure Hotch will have us send for you."

He knew she was right. He knew _Hotch_ was right. But his psyche told him he needed to be at William Reid's home. Or maybe he was just caught up in emotion.

The young man sat, staring at the floor of the plane and shaking his head, as his wife laid a comforting hand on his back.

"I don't …it's so….ridiculous, JJ. This man won't get out of my life. I don't even know why I care….."

"But you do." JJ wisdom.

Reid leaned forward, rubbing at his eyes before resting his forehead on the heels of his palms.

"God help me. I do."


	3. Chapter 3

**A Voice Cries Out **

**Chapter 3**

Morgan looked over at his passenger.

"Hey, Kid…how are you holding up?"

"I'm fine, Morgan. It's not all that hard to distance myself. Runs in the family."

Morgan picked up the bitterness in Reid's tone, as well as the anxiety. He knew from the last case involving William Reid how resentful his colleague was toward the man. But he also knew the man sitting beside him very well. He had too good a heart to be indifferent when his father might be in mortal danger, no matter how unworthy the elder Reid was of the title 'father'.

"Okay, then. But I would understand if you needed to step back…any time. All right?"

Reid knew Morgan was coming from a good place. But he hated to look weak in any way, even when it might have been expected of anyone.

"All right. But I'm fine. And I'll _be_ fine. You don't need to worry about me."

"Fair enough. We'll play it your way." _Far be it from me to worry about my kid brother._ "You want to take the lead with the florist, or do you want me to?"

"Doesn't matter. Be my guest."

Morgan kept silent for the remainder of the trip, ruminating. Reid was anything but 'okay' about this. That much was obvious. But the fact that he wouldn't admit it would make it hard for the others to be supportive. He had the sinking feeling that he might be piecing his Pretty Boy back together by the time this case reached a conclusion.

* * *

"Your husband is in denial."

JJ would have considered the statement to be impertinent and intrusive, had it come from someone other than Dave Rossi. But she knew how fond Rossi was of her whole family, including her very stubborn husband.

"He's not….well, maybe a little. He admitted to me that he cares, although he doesn't understand why."

"_That_…is perfectly understandable." Rossi turned the words around on her. "His father wasn't exactly deserving, as I recall."

He remembered that other time in Vegas. That time when he'd first heard the details of how William Reid had abandoned his wife and son. And how, even without knowing the man, Rossi had wanted to condemn him every bit as much as his son had.

_He had the chance to be a father. He had the chance. God, what I would have given! For even a second day with my son! And this…..idiot….walks out on a frightened kid and his sick mother. What a sorry excuse for a man!_

JJ responded to him. "No, you're right. He wasn't much of a father. I don't even know what kind of person he is. I've never met him."

Of course she hadn't. But that fact had escaped Rossi.

"What was he like when you met him, Rossi?"

He would have to finesse this a bit. The senior profiler spent a few seconds in consideration.

"Well, you have to remember that we didn't meet under the best of circumstances. His son had just accused him of murdering a child."

JJ had to concede on that. "Okay, fair point. But what did you think of him?"

"Well….he seemed…..small."

"Small?"

"Smaller than I would have thought. He's not as tall as Reid. But I didn't mean 'small' just in terms of his height. He just seemed..…insubstantial."

"Insubstantial." The kind of word Spence would use. How appropriate that Rossi thought it would apply to her husband's father.

"Yeah. Like he could have disappeared right in the middle of your conversation….and you wouldn't even notice." He paused, thinking of another word. "Inconsequential."

"Insubstantial and inconsequential. You sound like Spence." She paused. "In fact, that's probably exactly how Spence has described him to me. I always thought it was because of what he did to them. But now, you're saying….he's really like that."

Rossi thought a moment. "Perhaps I was influenced by knowing what he did as well, Cara. I will admit that I was angry with the man even before I met him."

JJ smiled at her older colleague's demonstration of caring for her husband.

"But, to answer your question…yes, I think he is really like that. The most vehement he got about anything was when he invoked his right to an attorney. Nothing about how good it was to see his son after so many years. Nothing about how impressed he was with what Reid had made of himself. He didn't even get all that riled when he realized Reid suspected him of murder. It was almost like it didn't matter enough."

Several minutes passed without words, JJ staring off out the window. Rossi glanced across at her, but could see she was lost in some thought that seemed to require her attention. He waited her out.

When she spoke again, it was preceded by a sigh. "I wish I'd met him."

He was surprised at that. "You do?"

"I wish I'd met him, so I would have known what he was like. Because then I might not have tried to let him into our lives."

He hadn't known about this.

"You spoke with him?"

JJ shook her head. "No. I wrote to him. When Spence was so badly hurt, in New Orleans. He was Spence's only blood relative…I thought he should know. I thought he'd _want_ to know."

"Let me guess….no response, right?"

"None. Well, not right away, anyway. He did send a plant, and a note, a couple of months later, for the New Year. He apologized to Spence in the note."

Rossi was surprised. "How did that go over?"

JJ gave a bitter laugh. "Not all that well. Especially when Spence realized I'd been in contact with his father. He was pretty angry with me for a little bit."

"You only meant it for the best, I'm sure, Cara. But I'm not surprised at Spencer's reaction."

She looked over at him. "You sound like the voice of experience. Was it like that between you and your father?"

Rossi smiled as he shook his head. "My father was a good man. He was a better father than I was a son."

It sounded like there was a story there, but JJ didn't feel privileged to ask. She just pondered the seemingly countless array of relationships between fathers and their sons. A smile came to her face as she thought about the father and son closest to her.

Rossi noticed. "What makes you smile, young one?"

"My two guys. Spence and Henry. They love each other so much, and it's so obvious…..it's so hard to picture any other kind of relationship between a father and a son. And they're not even related by blood."

Rossi smiled in approval. "As it should be. Blood, in my opinion, is overrated. Every good Italian knows…love comes from the heart." He looked over and winked at her. "That's amore."

* * *

Hotch and Emily, having procured some space and established a working relationship with the Las Vegas office of the FBI, were on their way to the home of William Reid.

"How do you think he's handling it?"

A few years ago, she might not have felt as free to discuss a fellow team member with their boss. But that was before Hotch had forced a returning Emily Prentiss to agree to confide in him.

_"You'll inevitably have bad days. I just want you to tell me when you're having them."_

He'd known how hard it was for her to open up. But he also knew a person couldn't survive what she had…..the attack, the pain, the ensuing isolation…..unscathed. Her survival alone had demonstrated her strength….but the willingness to admit weakness was a more important demonstration. He'd banked on her having that strength….and he'd been right.

She _had_ confided in him. On more than one occasion. And, although they remained in a supervisory/subordinate set of roles, those sharings of confidence had also cemented their friendship. Now, Emily routinely confided in Hotch. And he, though more circumspect, confided in her. He could be no less than honest with her now.

"I don't know. You know how he is. He doesn't want anyone to see how it's affecting him."

She agreed. "He thinks we baby him. Here, he's married and has two kids, and he still thinks we baby him. And he thinks that, if he gives any hint that this is difficult for him, we'll think he's weak."

Hotch agreed, to an extent.

"I think it's more complex than that. He's protective of his mother. And even though it was his father who left them, somehow, in Reid's head, it reflects poorly on his whole family. So he wants to play down the impact his father had on all of their lives, to protect his family."

Emily chewed on that for a minute. "Hmm. I wouldn't have thought that. But now that you mention it…how many times have we encountered abused kids who continue to defend their abusers?"

Hotch's affirming smile was grim. "People need to reconcile their pasts with their identities. To question the past….let alone to denigrate it…is to denigrate the person they've become."

"Even if it makes absolutely no sense. Yes, I guess you're right. So, he's not going to let on how much this is getting to him….correct?"

"At least he has JJ. I think he'll be honest with her. But I don't think we can expect her to share it with the team. We'll just have to trust that she'll handle it."

"She will." Emily was emphatic. She knew both of her friends very well.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A.N. As with 'Consequences', I have to apologize up front to all of you who are familiar with the practice of law. No doubt I've gotten process issues wrong, including how a law office functions. Not to mention facts. I can't even 'plead the fifth'-I'm guilty.**_

* * *

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 4**

_How appropriate_, thought Rossi, as they pulled into a small condo complex on the outskirts of the city. The external walls were the color of sand, making the building blend into the desert background that offset it. _It's barely there._

They'd been met by the patrol officer who'd conducted the original welfare check.

"Agents Rossi and Jareau? I'm Officer Guidry."

All three shook hands before heading in from the parking lot. Rossi quizzed the patrolman as they walked.

"So, you did the original check, is that right?"

"Yes, sir. It was a little unusual, being called out on the same day. You know, most people don't get excited if a competent adult is missing for a few hours."

Rossi nodded. "Agreed. We all need to be able to blow off some steam on our own now and then. But this was a different situation….."

"Yes, sir, it was. They'd just found that poor IRS guy dead in the desert, and then that KBNV reporter come up with that other IRS guy, and then they tried to make it sound like it was connected to that tax lawyer ran off a few months ago. This guy's," he poked a finger in the direction of the condo, "office was all over that. As soon as he didn't show up for work, they were on the phone."

There was something in his tone that bothered JJ. It sounded almost dismissive, as though he thought he'd been sent on a wild goose chase. She probed him.

"You do understand that the cases might be related, don't you? Between the tax attorneys and the IRS victim?"

"Well, I know the muckety-mucks believe it. Me? Not so sure. I know it's come out that tax lawyer who went missing before owed money to his clients. Probably ran off with their settlements, if you ask me."

JJ looked at Rossi, asking an unvoiced question. _Could William Reid have done the same? Could he have swindled clients and run off? Is that the kind of man he is?_

Rossi just gave a subtle shake of his head that conveyed his wish to put off that particular discussion. Now he turned back to Guidry who, for reasons neither of the SSAs could understand, was sounding increasingly hostile as the conversation proceeded. Rossi decided a little exploration was in order.

"Are you thinking they called us in prematurely?"

Guidry looked like he was measuring his words, not sure of his response. Finally, he settled on something.

"If the brass think it's time for the FBI, then it's time for the FBI. My pay grade doesn't make those decisions. All I'm sayin' is that I conducted a welfare check, and found nothing to point me in the direction of thinking anything bad happened to this guy."

Defensive. But there was no reason to make enemies this early in an investigation. Rossi decided to be conciliatory.

Nodding his agreement with the police officer, he said, "You were asked to check on Mr. Reid's welfare, and you did. You found nothing out of order, and no signs of illness or injury. The FBI isn't questioning that at all."

JJ understood her colleague's strategy, and added, "You were able to tell us what _didn't_ happen to Mr. Reid. We're here to take a different kind of look," careful to avoid using the word 'better', "to see if we can get an idea of where he might have gone, or when."

Placated for the moment, Guidry moved ahead of them and opened the door, using a key.

"Where did you get that?" Like the others, JJ had wondered how the police had obtained access to William Reid's condo.

Guidry pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Fake rock. Like all the crooks in the country don't know about them." He shook his head in ridicule. "Hard to believe somebody graduated from law school would do something so stupid. Why not just leave the door wide open?"

The profilers exchanged another look. The not-so-hidden-key meant that anyone could have accessed the condo without needing a ruse, or a break-in tool.

Or, the fact that the key was still in place when Officer Guidry performed his welfare check could mean that no one had used it at all. Perhaps William Reid _had _simply disappeared again, as his son had said.

* * *

"Oh, thank God. Agent Hotchner, Agent Prentiss, we're so glad you're here."

Office Manager Dorothy Ricks met them at the front desk and was now escorting the two agents to a large conference room.

"Attorney Reid is such a good man, and such an important part of our business. I don't like to even think about anything happening to him."

They'd settled into the room and taken seats. Emily stated the obvious. "And yet you _did_ think something might have happened to him. Are you the person who called the police?"

Dorothy nodded. "Betty was the one who told me he hadn't shown for a 9 AM deposition, and that was virtually unheard of. No, actually it was _literally_ unheard of. I don't think William….Attorney Reid has ever been late for anything."

"Ma'am," Hotch now, "was there anything else that might have made you think something had happened to him? Something that would have pointed you away from the ordinary?"

Emily tried to help her. "A reason why you didn't just assume he'd had a flat tire, or something along those lines."

Dorothy waved the latter suggestion away. "Oh, no. William would never be caught unprepared. He would have had AAA there right away. And he would have called m….us…., at the very least. No, it was totally out of character for him. I knew right away that I should call the police."

The agents exchanged a quick glance, but then continued on with their questioning.

Emily took the lead now. "What about cases? Was there anything unusual about what he was working on? Anyone unhappy with how things were going?"

Dorothy shrugged. "There's always someone unhappy. If not our clients, who file some of the most ridiculous lawsuits, in spite of counsel against them, then it's the people on the other end of the lawsuits."

Hotch didn't choose to share his own background in law. "Did Mr. Reid have a primary field of practice?" Knowing he'd been described as a tax attorney, but not certain his practice had been that limited.

"_Did_ he?" Dorothy picked up on the use of the past tense. "You think he's dead, don't you?"

Emily tried to calm her. "We don't think anything, Ms. Ricks. We're simply trying to gather information."

Hotch joined in the effort. "Perhaps we could start with a review of his current case list. Who would be the best person to assist with that?"

"His paralegal. That would be Desmond. He's in the library. Would you like me to bring him here?"

Hotch thought a moment and then decided. "It would be very helpful if we could look at Mr. Reid's office for few minutes, and then we can meet with Desmond."

Dorothy indicated her assent and led them down an L-shaped hallway, stopping at the next-to-corner office. Hotch, though never in private practice, was familiar with the symbolic placement of the individual attorney's office. William rated an outside space, and thereby a window view. But the owner of the corner office outranked him.

Dorothy used a master key to unlock the door and swung it open, entering ahead of the agents.

"It's pristine. Always has been. He's always kept it 'just so'."

She was right. Looking at William's desk, Emily could see that the phone was situated exactly the same distance from each side of the desk, in the upper right corner. A stapler was aligned perfectly beside the phone, and a wire basket next to that.

"The basket is empty. Is that typical?"

Emily wondered if the elder Reid was that quick in turning his work around. But she also wanted to know if the fact that no new work was accumulating might indicate something about how the office staff interpreted his disappearance.

"William is always prompt in his paperwork," said Dorothy with obvious pride. "He's one of our leaders in terms of billable hours, and he makes certain to have the documentation completed as soon as possible."

"But would his desk actually be empty?" Emily waved at the immaculate surface.

"Well….no, not quite that. I usually distribute things at the end of the day, before I leave for home, so it will be available for the attorneys when they come in."

"And, so…" prompted Emily.

Sadness showed in Dorothy's face. "I left things for him for the first couple of days. But, when we didn't hear from him….. well, I'm the office manager. I can't let things back up. I redistributed them."

Hotch, though he'd practiced law only as a prosecutor, was aware of how most law offices worked. He began to wonder if Dorothy hadn't accidentally 'redistributed' something crucial.

"What did you do with cases where Mr. Reid was already the attorney of record?"

Dorothy understood what he was asking. "Oh, I gave all of those to Attorney Halstrom. He's the founding partner. He wanted to be sure our ongoing customers would be satisfied."

Now Emily saw where Hotch had been going. "So you only redistributed cases that Mr. Reid hadn't already had in progress?"

"Exactly."

"All right, thank you."

Hotch was already moving about the office, looking for anything that might give him a work-based clue as to William's disappearance, while Prentiss scoured the office for the personal. Her scouring took only a minute.

"Wow, his office is rather….spare, isn't it? I mean there's only these few photos with….what, a Little League team?"

Dorothy smiled. "The firm sponsors the team. And William has been an assistant coach with them for as long as I've known him. He loves children."

That brought on a quick exchange of eye contact between the two profilers. _Except his own_, went through both minds.

Emily continued with the short inventory of personal items in William's office. She picked up what looked like a wire metal sculpture. "Is this a…"

"It's the solar system. A model of it. William has a strong interest in science and mathematics. He told me once that he might have gone into science if he hadn't chosen the law. Maybe that's why he specialized in tax law. It requires a good knowledge of accounting."

"The fascination with numbers…" murmured Hotch, recognizing the Reid family trait. He looked at Dorothy.

"You've known him a long time, haven't you?"

"The entire thirty years I've been here."

Emily followed Hotch's train of thought. "You seem fond of him."

Dorothy blushed. "It's nothing like that. I mean, not that I wouldn't have liked…" She cut herself off, feeling like she'd said too much.

"We're not trying to intrude, Ms. Ricks. We simply need to get as clear a picture of Mr. Reid as we can. It might help us find him." Emily was sympathetic.

Dorothy looked out the window, apparently considering. When she'd decided, she turned back to the agents.

"William is a very private man. He doesn't let many people get close to him. I think he may have shared more with me than with almost anybody else here, but even with me, he's always been circumspect. You know….when you can tell there's more to be told, but you can't tell _what_ it is."

The FBI agents thought they knew at least one of the things the elder Reid might not have been sharing with his co-worker. The question was…how many other things was he not telling?

* * *

"Welcome to 'Blooms'. How can I help you?"

Morgan flashed his badge at the young Native American woman behind the counter.

"We're from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. We'd like to ask you some questions about one of your customers."

"Ookaay…" She sounded uncertain.

"Just a few questions," clarified Reid. "We're not investigating you. We're trying to find a missing person."

She seemed to relax at that. "Oh. Okay, how can I help?"

Morgan explained. "We're looking for a man who's been reported missing, and one of the last things he did was to buy flowers from you."

"He made a purchase with his credit card on December 31," added Reid.

"Wow. You're not asking much, are you? Only a zillion guys came in here for flowers that day. It was New Year's Eve."

Morgan acknowledged the dilemma. "We realize that. But we need to know who he sent those flowers to."

The clerk moved away from the counter and started for a doorway leading toward the back of the shop.

"Are you sure he sent flowers? What if he just picked something up?"

They'd been aware of that as a possibility. Still, they needed to try.

"Can you just look it up for us?" Morgan insisted.

The clerk turned and shouted into the back. "Dad! I need you out here!"

A minute later, an older man emerged from the back, drying his hands on a towel.

"What do you need, Mary?" He stopped short when he saw Morgan's badge flashed once again. Then he stepped forward, dried hand extended.

"Ben Yazzie."

"I'm agent Morgan and this is Dr. Reid." Shaking of hands all around.

Reid spoke up first. "Yazzie. That's a Navajo name, isn't it?"

"Sure is. You from around here?"

"I grew up in Las Vegas, but I live in DC now. But I remember this area as Paiute territory."

Yazzie agreed. "So it is. But we all live in peace now." He smiled as he said it, to show he'd taken no offense.

Reid was embarrassed anyway. "Sorry. I didn't mean to imply…."

"Nothing implied. No apology necessary. What can we do for you?"

Mary explained what the FBI agents were seeking. "See, I've been telling you, Dad. We need to modernize. I can't even tell them if this person picked up flowers or sent them to someone."

She turned to the agents. "I've been telling him we need to keep electronic records, but he says his old paper system is good enough."

Ben Yazzie had obviously been through this with his daughter before. "Relax, Mary. We don't need a fancy electronic filing system if we know our customers well." He turned back to Reid and Morgan. "Who is the customer you are inquiring about?"

Reid seemed to be deferring, so Morgan responded. "William Reid." He gave Yazzie a copy of the photo of William from his workplace website.

Reid watched as Yazzie reacted, even before seeing the photo.

"William Reid? He's missing?"

"You know him? You know him by name?"

Yazzie seemed a bit shaken by the news. It took him a minute to gather himself.

"I've been in business here for over twenty years. William was a faithful customer for nearly all of that time."

Morgan flashed a look at Reid, then turned back to Yazzie. "Can you look at this photo and confirm that the person in the photo is the one you knew as William Reid?"

Yazzie did so. "It's him," was the sad response. "Did something happen to him?"

"We're not sure. Right now, we're just investigating it as a missing persons case."

Mary was more clear-headed than her father in the moment. And she was surprised at what she'd heard.

"They call in the FBI for an adult missing person? From DC? And he's only been missing since last week?" It seemed a disproportionate response.

Morgan acknowledged it as unusual, and explained. "He may be part of another case. We're looking into his disappearance as a precaution."

Reid spoke up now, anxious for news. "So, if you know my…..if you know him, do you remember if he was sending flowers? If so, to whom?"

Ben Yazzie shook his head in regret. "He picked them up. I remember talking with him that day. Usually I wouldn't see him so often, but he'd been in only a week or so before. Sending something to his son's family for Christmas."

Reid's eyes shot to the floor. He'd accepted the arrangement into the house, but not acknowledged it to his father in any way. JJ had sent a 'thank you' card for all of them.

Morgan made note of Reid's reaction, and deflected attention from it by asking another question of Yazzie.

"You said he was a long time customer, but you weren't used to seeing him often."

"Right. A few times a year. It's just that, over the years, I came to recognize his face. I think it's important for a merchant to know his customers." Looking back at Mary, as though to say, _And no computer will ever accomplish that._

Morgan continued the questioning. "Did he talk to you about who he was buying flowers for?"

Yazzie smiled. "Of course. He bought them for his wife."


	5. Chapter 5

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 5**

"His wife?" Morgan echoed Ben Yazzie's words, then turned to look at his colleague. Reid looked as though he'd been slapped.

Yazzie looked worried. "Did something happen to her as well?"

Looking at Reid, Morgan could tell he would be on his own during this interrogation. The younger man was simply staring at the ground in front of him, clearly trying to absorb the information. The senior profiler turned back to the florist.

"Did you ever meet his wife?"

"No. Only Mr. Reid. He stopped in a few times a year, always took a bouquet home for her. Now you tell me….Lord, what is this world coming to?"

Morgan felt like he needed to get Reid out of there. But there was something else he needed to know first.

"If a customer walks in, is there any kind of record of it beyond a credit card? What if he uses cash?"

Now Ben Yazzie exchanged an '_I told you so'_ glance with his daughter.

"Yes. I keep a file on what repeat customers order. They seem to like it when I can replicate a particular arrangement exactly. So, even if it's a cash-and-carry transaction, I've got a record."

That was better than Morgan had hoped for.

"Can you put together a list of the dates he came in? Add in any phone orders. And any deliveries. And…I guess…let us know what the arrangement was. Someone will be by for it tomorrow. And we may have more questions for you."

"I'll be glad to help, Agent Morgan. I'm so sorry for whatever has happened to Mr. Reid…and his wife."

Morgan nodded a farewell at both Yazzies, then used a hand to Reid's shoulder to turn the younger agent around and toward the door. When they'd reached the SUV, Morgan turned to his friend.

"You all right? Reid?"

Reid squinted into the distance. "I always wondered if he'd replaced us. If he'd left us and made himself a new family. I just…"

"But Garcia never found any record of that when we had that case…"

"She searched for computer records, Morgan. She found his credit history, and his bank accounts. She even hacked into his own computer. But she only went back ten years. They'd have been long since divorced by then. And he'd have had plenty of time to remarry."

Morgan felt helpless in the face of the raw pain oozing from Reid. Silently, he put the SUV in gear, and headed on to their next destination, fully intending to task Garcia with looking more thoroughly into William Reid's past.

* * *

Miles away, Hotch and Emily were also in transit.

"So, do we even know if these two IRS guys knew each other?" Emily threw it out to keep herself from saying '_Can you believe that skank hung around children his entire life but left poor Reid to fend for himself?'_

From the look on Hotch's face, she knew she didn't really have to say it aloud anyway. But both of them knew that kind of discussion wouldn't move the case forward. Better to keep one's own counsel on thoughts like those.

"No doubt they were acquainted, but we haven't heard yet if they were anything more than work colleagues."

"I wonder if any of Davidovitch's cases moved on to the other agent when he retired. What was the other name again?"

"Farrell," responded Hotch. "And I've asked Garcia to run their case files to look for overlaps."

"Well, just so you know….I can't even do my own taxes. I won't be able to find any funny money in someone else's tax records."

Hotch laughed. "Not surprising."

Emily made a mock-hurt face at him, but ended up smiling back. Despite it being at her expense, it was always refreshing to hear Hotch make a joke. And she seemed to have a knack for bringing them out.

"Seriously, how are we going to be able to look at the books?"

"We're the FBI. There's got to be an accountant lurking somewhere in the Vegas office. And….well, I thought I'd put Reid to work."

Back to the subject they'd been trying to avoid.

"You want to keep him busy, don't you?"

"His mind takes him to some difficult places even when the case isn't personal. This time…"

Emily nodded. "You're right. Maybe he can take a speed-accounting course tonight," she joked.

Hotch looked over at her. "I've got Garcia looking for one of those, too."

Emily shot wide eyes at him, and then squinted, trying to make out whether he was serious. With Hotch, one couldn't always tell. Not even Emily.

* * *

"Jeez," Morgan whistled. "This is pretty far into the middle of nowhere. How did anybody find him here? What the hell is _anybody_ doing out here?"

They'd driven for miles along a state road, then gone off road over an hour ago, following a Nevada state trooper over the very rough terrain.

"Las Vegas is entirely surrounded by the Mojave Desert, which extends well beyond Nevada, into Utah, Arizona and California. It's over 25,000 square miles in area. Give or take."

Morgan gave him a look.

"Well, the boundaries are rough. They're mostly delineated by the Joshua tree. So changes in climate change the borders."

"Oh. Well, my other question still stands. What, in God's name, would someone be doing out here? Other than dumping a body, that is."

He was referring to the hiker who'd stumbled upon the grisly dump site. The report had been delayed by a long-standing phone outage in the nearby visitor center. The hiker had been forced to cover more ground before he could attempt to reach police.

Reid stated the obvious. "The desert is a popular area for hikers and back-packers. But, you're right, there aren't all that many who come this far out."

"Which begs the question. If the unsub dumped the body this far out, it doesn't seem like he was planning on it being found. So, then, what's the significance of the bites to the tongue and the heart? It sounded like it would be a signature, and part of a display. But who's he displaying it to?"

Reid considered that a moment. Morgan was right. The mutilation had seemed part of a message from the unsub to those he hoped would discover his victim. But then, why put the display where it was so unlikely to be seen? He finished his thought aloud.

"Unless this is the kill site. Maybe the mutilation wasn't for display. Maybe it was to satisfy some compulsion. Maybe they came out here together, but then he couldn't move the body on his own."

So many maybes. Morgan gave them all thought. "Could be. Did we get a definitive cause of death yet?"

The obvious, removal of the heart, might have happened post-mortem. They'd been called in so early in this case, that some of the information they were usually provided wasn't yet available.

"Not as of when we left the city. But we're out of cell range here." It would have to wait until they returned.

Reid was still working on the display issue. "You know, Morgan, there are less traveled areas of the desert than this. I mean, we did pass a visitor's center about ten miles up the road."

"Ten miles up the road, Reid. The _road_. And then we spent another hour getting here _off_ road. I'd hardly call this well-traveled."

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there are _less_ traveled areas. So maybe the unsub _was _displaying, and just willing to have a delayed response to the display."

Reid was having trouble speaking, his breath coming in pants. After leaving the SUV, they'd had to hike uphill for a half mile before reaching the site where the body of Davidovitch had been found. The scene had been processed, and the body removed, yesterday. All that remained inside an area cordoned with evidence tape was a flattening of the sand and the scrub that overlay it.

"All right," said Morgan, looking around, " I'm winded after that hike, and I'm not carrying anything. What, are we at an elevation here?"

Nevada State Trooper Eli Bell answered him. "We're at about twelve hundred feet. Not exactly high desert, but enough to feel it."

"So I'm thinking the unsub couldn't have carried the body all this way. Which means this is looking more like the kill site." Morgan looked at Reid as he said it.

The genius understood. If this was a kill site, and not simply a dump site, the unsub and victim likely traveled there together, before the victim was incapacitated. And that would impact the profile. If they'd traveled to the wilderness together, perhaps the connection was something personal, rather than professional.

"What about an ATV? He might have been able to move a body that way."

"I don't know, Kid. It would be pretty tough to secure someone who wasn't conscious, let alone alive. Besides, he'd need to have transported the ATV here somehow. And the trooper said there weren't any tire marks here before the first responders."

"We should find out what the weather's been. The winds can be pretty impressive here. The sand can cover tracks within hours."

Reid bent to pick up some of that sand and run it through his fingers. As he straightened, he looked off to a horizon that seemed an impossible distance away. He'd lived near this desert for over half his life, yet never really experienced it. He'd never understood its challenge, nor its magnitude. Now, he was beginning to get a sense of both. For all of its beauty, the desert was filled with peril, and mystery.

The young genius stood, looking out over the expanse. He knew the desert might have issued him his ultimate challenge. It might have played a role in the loss of his father. And it might seek to conceal that loss from him, forever.

* * *

When he saw Rossi and JJ don their gloves, Officer Guidry felt compelled to remind them, "Remember, this isn't technically a crime scene."

_Yet_, thought Rossi. He had a feeling about this, and it wasn't good. But all he said was, "Better to be safe than sorry, right?"

Guidry conceded. "Right. But I already checked with my lieutenant. He said you can look, and you can even touch…but you can't take anything."

JJ didn't see why they couldn't just leave a receipt for anything they might feel a need to take, but then, she wasn't so familiar with the legalities of this kind of search. The kind where a crime may or may not have been committed. Rossi didn't seem to be arguing, so she went along.

She began her search with an inventory of William Reid's bookshelves. Like his son, he seemed to be quite the bibliophile, with shelves on three walls surrounding a sofa in what appeared to serve as a living room. Before long, she found her search slowed by a diversion of her attention toward his reading choices.

_Asimov. I think Spence told me about that. Sagan. Makes sense. C.S. Lewis. Hmm. I thought he'd only written those children's books, but this is a space trilogy. Tolkien. Clark. This could be Spence's bookshelf._

Except that it contained none of the medieval literature Diana had so loved. JJ never quite knew if Diana had passed that affinity on to her son, or if he read the books only because they reminded him of his mother.

"JJ, take a look at this." Rossi interrupted her train of thought. He was at the far end of the shelves, where the books had been replaced by photos and mementos. JJ moved over to him.

"What is it?"

He was holding a framed black and white photograph. In it, a man Rossi recognized as William stood behind a group of six or seven year old boys, all in baseball tees. He introduced JJ to the image of her father-in-law.

"This is William. And….is this…" Rossi pointed to a toothless, glasses-clad boy in the front row. "…is this Spencer?"

She'd seen only one photograph of her husband as a boy. He'd explained it to her.

_"My mom had a break one time, and she believed photographs could be used to torture the people in them, so she burned every picture she had of either of us."_

He'd been sad, not to have a picture of his mother. But he'd also been resigned. _"I have an eidetic memory. I'll always be able to see her in my mind."_

And then, what seemed a miracle. He'd found a photo of himself with Diana tucked between the pages of one of her old journals. One of the ones she'd written as a young girl. Apparently the photo had become lost and, providentially, saved. They'd framed it, and it now sat on the mantle in their home.

JJ looked at the framed photograph in Rossi's hand, nodding. "That's Spence."

She took the picture from him, and smiled at the image of her husband as a young boy, among other young boys. It was the first time she'd been able to conjure an image of him with anything resembling a normal childhood. Looking at the photograph, JJ was momentarily able to forget all of the pain of Spence's youth, and look upon him as a youngster, the same age Henry was now, enjoying the camaraderie of his teammates, and the investment of his father. The thought of it, and of what followed, brought wetness to her eyes, and anger to her spirit.

_He was so innocent. So undeserving of what happened to him. What could you have been thinking?_

In truth, she wasn't sure whether it was William Reid or God she was angry with, for this boy who'd lost his youth at such a tender age. All she knew was that she was angry.

_Now I understand, Spence. And I'm sorry I ever reached out to him._

All this transpired in JJ's head in matter of seconds. But it was long enough for Rossi to notice.

"Are you all right, Cara?" He spoke softly, not wanting Guidry to realize her reaction. They'd not chosen to tell the officer about her family connection to the potential victim.

She shook it off. "I'm fine. Just…. I'm starting to get it."

She began to move away, but then turned back.

"God, Rossi. He was just a boy. It would be like Spence suddenly walking out on Henry. I mean….for all my little boy has been through…." She had to compose herself, as she always did when she thought of how much loss Henry had endured. "…..for all that, he's never had to think he didn't matter. That no one cared about him. But Spence…"

"Spencer is resilient, thank God."

Knowing, even without having been there for all of it, that Reid had been called upon to demonstrate that resilience time and again. Now Rossi turned to face his young colleague directly.

"You need to tell me, young JJ. Can you do this? Can you investigate this case the same way you would any other? Your feelings about William Reid are understandable. But can you put them aside?"

When he saw her taken aback, he continued. "It would be perfectly understandable if this was too close. It's your husband's father. You don't need to work it, and neither does he."

JJ closed her eyes, effortfully bringing herself back to an impassive stance.

"I'm sorry if I got emotional, Rossi. It won't happen again. Or, if it does…" She'd seen a bit of disbelief in his look, "….if it does, you can call me out on it...call either of us out... and we'll step back. We don't want to compromise the team. But I know that Spence needs to do this…."

Rossi put up a palm. "Understood. So, let's get back to work. Why don't I finish with these, and you can take a look around the rest of the place?"

He was trying to move her away from the personal mementos that seemed to trigger her emotional response, and JJ knew it. Just like she knew he was right.

"Okay… okay, you're right. I'll take the bedrooms and bath.."

"Agreed."

JJ headed down the hallway, noting. as she passed him, that Officer Guidry had taken up a seat at the small kitchen table and seemed to be texting on his cell.

"Do you need to observe me in the other rooms?" Letting him know that she was aware he'd been making sure nothing untoward took place in the living room.

Guidry seemed uncertain, now that the FBI agents were separating. "Umm… no, I guess you're okay by yourself. Just give a yell if you find something."

_Right._ JJ proceded down a short hallway and into a gray bedroom. Literally. The walls were gray, as was the carpet and the curtains. Only the bedding broke up the color scheme, with a black bedspread serving as a backdrop for bright burgundy pillows and shams.

_Almost_ not there. But there. The gray suggested a desire to blend into the background, the bright burgundy a willingness to be noticed. It seemed there might be some complexity to William after all.

A quick purview of the room yielded little. The dresser top was empty, the bed unadorned. A small master bath held only towels and a few toiletries. The bedroom closet displayed neatly hung dress shirts, slacks and suit jackets, with a few folded jeans and sweaters on the built-in shelves. Absently, JJ skimmed the racks for sweater vests and scarves, and was disappointed not to find the sartorial connection between father and son. But then her eye caught something.

She stood on tiptoes to reach all the way to the back of the high closet shelf, pulling a box forward. As she lifted it down, she was impressed with its weight. The box obviously held something of some heft.

JJ brought the box over to the dresser and laid it down. She wriggled the top from it and looked inside. Instantly, she recognized the contents….and was shocked to see them.

_But how….? And why?_


	6. Chapter 6

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 6**

Morgan and Reid were the last to arrive back to the Vegas FBI office, after making the long trek in from the desert. JJ's eyes anxiously followed her husband as he moved around the table to take a seat next to Hotch, trying to assess his emotional state. He looked tense, and frustrated.

Notably, he'd avoided eye contact with her. He'd done that kind of thing before, in a vain effort to protect her.

_He's afraid I'll be able to read the look in his eyes, and that it will worry me. Like the fact that he isn't looking at me won't do the same. That's my Spence._

So she did what she knew would work. She stared at him until he felt compelled to look at her.

When she caught his eyes, she queried him. _How are you?_ Then watched his face change as he gave up attempting to deceive her. His silent response was obvious. _I need you._

But it would have to wait. Hotch had arranged for them to debrief together before meeting with the Las Vegas SSAs in charge of the case. It was a courtesy being afforded them by their Vegas colleagues because of the personal connection with a possible victim, but also because the William Reid case had yet to be definitively connected to the Davidovitch murder.

The unit chief started the discussion, letting his eyes rest more often on his youngest than on the rest.

"We were only able to speak with the office staff and his paralegal, the other attorneys were out of the office. According to the office manager, there was no unusual behavior until he failed to come to work."

Emily interjected, "She seemed very fond of him. Seemed to know him really well."

Reid's eyes shot in her direction. "How well?" _He's married and he's fooling around?_

Emily was quick to back down. "Not… well, I don't know. But I got the sense that it wasn't romantic. And that she was sorry it wasn't."

The others followed her gaze to Hotch for confirmation.

"I had the same sense as Emily. But not a sense of jealousy."

"Just regret," clarified Emily, and there was something in her voice that said she was familiar with the sentiment.

Hotch brought them back to the main issue. "We'll be getting a list and synopsis of his cases for the last six months. Some of them were redistributed to other attorneys in the office, but his paralegal thought he'd be able to figure out which had primarily been William's."

That plan didn't sit quite right with Rossi.

"Davidovitch was already retired for six months. If there's a connection, it might well go back a lot further than that. It could be as long as thirty years."

"Rossi's right," agreed Morgan. "We need to have Garcia cross reference all of the IRS agents' cases with both of the attorneys' cases, as far back as we can go."

Hotch put up a hand to placate them. "We'll have Garcia do everything she can. But it seems William Reid was a little….late….to digitizing his cases, so many of them were entered into their system as scanned documents, rather than new electronic data."

Emily smiled and look pointedly at Reid as she added, "Yes, it seems he was very fond of pen and paper." _Like his son_. But she didn't need to add that. It was already in all of their minds.

She continued, filling them in on the visit to the IRS office.

"They were all pretty shaken up about Davidovitch. I wouldn't exactly say they were fond of him…considering none of them had seen or spoken with him since his retirement dinner. But there was definitely a sense of fear, like they were wondering if it could happen to them."

JJ asked, "Was he involved in anything that any of them knew of? Any investigations? Any angry clients?"

Hotch responded with a simple. "He was an auditor."

General groans at that. Morgan said it for all of them. "So he pretty much had nothing _but_ angry clients."

"Well, there must have been a case or two that stood out from the others. Someone who struck his colleagues as being unusually upset…right?"

JJ found the need to contribute to the conversation, if only as a means of getting her mind off her husband. And the news she had to share.

"There was," said Hotch. "There were actually several. We gave the names to Garcia. She should have something for us soon."

Morgan had his phone out, ready to check in with his Baby Girl, but Reid put out a hand to stop him.

"You'd better put the volume down on that. Do you realize how many things we've given her to do, just this afternoon?"

Emily smiled. "Are you saying we might have caused her to implode?"

Rossi shrugged. "We may as well find out. At least she's two thousand miles away."

"Two thousand, four hundred, twenty six," corrected Reid, not noticing the smiles around him. He might be emotionally stressed, but he was still Reid.

Morgan made the connection, opting to keep it off speaker until he appraised Garcia's mood. The others could only hear his end of the conversation.

"Hey, Momma… how…I know, I know…..hey, cool your jets, Baby Girl…breathe...take a breath….in…out…..that's it…..all right, I'm putting you on speaker, all right?"

He'd walked away from the table, now came back and put his phone in the middle.

"Garcia?..." Hotch used his best command tone. "What have you got for us?"

A long, audible inhalation and exhalation came through the phone.

"Sir! I'm still running a couple of programs, and I didn't think I'd be able to look at any of Mr. Reid's older cases until at least tomorrow, because they were sending the information electronically, but the scanned documents took up so much bandwidth that it kept clogging their system…but that's not a problem any longer."

"It's not?" Having the sense that this wasn't the good news it should have been.

"No! It's not a problem any longer because they shut off the flow of information altogether. I thought they'd crashed their system, so I called them, but a woman named Dorothy Ricks told me that her boss said they were violating confidentiality and he made her stop. He's also demanding that I delete the information they've already sent me."

"Garcia, you didn't…" Reid didn't care about the legality just now. He only cared about finding out what had happened to his father.

"Of course I didn't, my baby genius. But it will make it harder for me to go in their system without being noticed. I can do it, but they'll be looking for me. And it will take me longer to bring everything over, with the size of the files. That gives their security more time to find me."

Reid had a thought. "Would it be faster to just look at the files in place? If you can get me into their system, maybe I can just read through them without having to download."

Brows went up around the table. They all knew Reid could digest written information at lightning speed. They'd seen him do it before. But…._that_ fast?

"Spence….are you sure?" JJ was concerned that his emotional involvement with the case might affect his ability to process the information.

He shook his head. "No. But I have to try."

"Garcia?" Hotch prompted her to react to Reid's proposal.

"I can remote in and send the visual to one of your monitors there. Yes. Yes, I can. And I can set up a 'little thing' that will tell us if they know we're in there."

Morgan teased her. "A 'little thing'?"

"Yes, Derek, a little thing." They could all hear the confidence returning to her voice, as she announced this solution to one of many problems.

Reid cleared his throat and spoke up again.

"Garcia….did you find any records of his… marriage?"

They hadn't given their report yet. Only Morgan knew about William Reid's visits to the florist to buy flowers for his wife. Now JJ's eyes flew to her husband. "Spence?"

He didn't even try to hide the bitterness. "That's right. He married again. He brought her flowers all the time. Dutiful husband that he was." Then corrected himself, hoping, in spite of the vitriol he felt. "Is."

"Pen?" JJ prompted Garcia to respond.

"Nada. Nil. Nothing. I found nothing, sweet thing. Only a record of his marriage to your Mom, Reid. It looked like they were married for about eight years before you came along…right?"

Reid made no response, still trying to absorb what she'd said about not finding a record of William's second marriage.

Morgan saw the dilemma in his friend's face. "See? Maybe Yazzie got it wrong." Not believing it for a minute.

"Or he just lied to Yazzie, like he lied to everyone else." Bitterness laced with anger.

Hotch scrutinized his young genius. They were only a few hours into the case investigation, and the young man's emotions were starting to leak into the process. It would bear careful watching. And, perhaps, a difficult decision to isolate Reid.

JJ almost cringed when she realized she and Rossi were up next. Spence was already struggling, and he didn't even know yet.

Her colleague started the report. "We noticed a little hostility from the responding officer….Guidry was his name. He made the welfare check on William Reid, and he was pretty defensive about not having noticed anything out of place."

"So there _was _something out of place?" Emily didn't understand what he was trying to say.

Rossi shook his head. "No. Nothing obvious. But Guidry wasn't buying our assurances on that. He sat and watched the whole time we were there, and then…"

"And then he insisted we leave everything as we found it." JJ sounded upset.

Emily shrugged. "I don't get it. What…"

JJ spoke over her. "I found something. It may not be related to the case, but ….I thought it might be important …." Her voice trailed off. In truth, it might not be important to the case at all, and she knew it. But it _was_ important to her. And, she knew, it would be important to her husband. Moreover, she knew he would be upset that William had it.

Reid's eyes were penetrating. "What is it?"

JJ waited a beat before responding. "It was a journal. It was one of your mother's journals, Spence."

* * *

They begged off dinner with their teammates, wanting to call home before the kids were asleep.

"We'll get something in the room, and see you all in the morning," JJ explained. It had been a very long day, and she wanted nothing more than to be surrounded by her family, even if only virtually. It wasn't hard to see that Reid felt the same way.

Hands clasped, they rode the elevator in silence. JJ leaned on her husband and rubbed his arm. When they finally made their way into the privacy of their room, she simply turned around and opened her own arms, and he gratefully stepped into them.

The depth of his need was apparent in how tightly he was holding her.

"Rough day, huh?" So understated, it was almost a joke. Making it sound like almost any other rough day, and not the one on which he'd found out his father might have become the victim of a grisly killer. And the one on which he'd found out that his father had gone on to have a whole new family after he'd abandoned his first wife and son.

"Hmmph." His face was buried in her shoulder.

She started to pull away, but he just held her tighter. She would have let him, but...

"Spence, it's after nine at home. I know Henry isn't going down until he hears from us."

The thought of his own children missing him was motivation enough. Reid broke away and motioned JJ to the bed. He joined her there a moment later, his tablet already summoning the video connection. The contact made, their screen lit up…and so did the two looking at it.

Her brow was furrowed at first, as though she was trying to figure something out. But, as soon as she recognized the faces, Rosie burst into a wide grin.

"Hi, Baby Girl!" Without planning, they'd said it in unison.

"Daddy! Mommy!" Rosie tried to reach out and touch them through the screen, then appeared annoyed when her hand wouldn't go through the glass.

"Hi, Sweetheart! Mommy misses you!"

Daddy's head pushed Mommy's away. "Daddy misses you, too! What did you do today?"

"Played."

For all of her advanced language skills, and her wide vocabulary, Rosie could be a woman of few words. Reid often watched her, feeling like he could see her trying to sort through what she wanted to say and, becoming overwhelmed, settle on just one or two words. She so often looked like she wanted to explode with speech but, somehow, just wasn't ready. JJ had noticed it too, and would often tease her husband.

"Maybe you were like that as a toddler too, Spence. But you obviously got over it."

"Hey," he would answer, in mock indignation, "I resemble that!"

"Where's Henry?" asked the young boy's mother.

Now a head of shaggy blonde hair appeared on their screen. Henry, to his mother's chagrin, liked to model himself after his father.

"Here I am!"

"Hey, Little Man, we missed you today. How was school?"

"Okay." Another Reid of few words. Sometimes.

"What did you do?"

"Nothin'."

Reid gave his son the one-eyebrow raise. _Do they become teenagers in the second grade?_

"You went to school and did nothing all day? What about your spelling test?"

"Oh, I got a hundred on that."

Reid smiled and high-fived his son through the screen.

I'm sorry I'm not there to help you with your science project tonight."

"It's okay, Daddy. Papa is helping me."

"He is?" Disappointment in Reid's tone. He'd been looking forward to it.

Now the voice of Charles Jareau could be heard, though the face on the screen was still Henry's. And then Rosie's. And then Henry's again. Finally, the screen seemed to be pulled back, so that both faces could be seen at the same time.

"Don't worry, Spencer. I'm just helping him gather his materials, and we're doing a little search on-line. You'll have plenty of time to map the stars when you get home."

It was their most frequent bonding experience. Henry would join his father outside, and learn about the stars and planets he could see from his very own backyard. When the science assignment had been made, the youngster had been adamant about wanting his project to be about astronomy. JJ had come to the rescue of both of her men when she found the umbrella idea on the internet.

"You take a clear umbrella, and you go outside and start marking the stars you can see through it."

"Like a planetarium!" Henry's vocabulary was pretty good, too. And so was the rest of his mind. It had been his idea to rotate the umbrella to show his classmates how the night sky changed over time. It was enough to make JJ wonder if she would even be able to understand his projects by the time he hit middle school.

Sandy made a brief appearance behind the children. "Hello, Sweetheart. Hi, Spencer. How is Las Vegas? You haven't been back there in a long time."

The Jareaus didn't know the details of this case…..nor those of any of their other cases. They just knew that, if their daughter and son-in-law were being called in, it meant that death had come to the innocent. This time, they also didn't know that it was possible that a member of Reid's family had become one of those innocents.

"It hasn't changed all that much. Maybe more crowded, is all." Reid kept it superficial.

"Well, I'm going to head these two off to bed, if you don't mind. Henry insisted on staying up for your call, but tomorrow is a school day."

"Okay, Mom. But could we speak with Dad for just a minute while you're doing that?" Code for, 'alone, without the kids'. Sandy caught her daughter's meaning and agreed.

A round of 'good night' and 'I love you' ensued, and then Reid and JJ were left to talk to Charles. Without giving him the details of their official case, they explained about William having gone missing, and the concern that the two might be related.

"My God, Spencer. I'm sorry. So sorry." He knew better than to ask if Reid was all right. Of course he wasn't.

"Thanks. I need to ask you to do something for me."

"Anything."

"In our bedroom closet, there are a couple of boxes on the floor in the left hand corner. They're my mother's journals. I think they're pretty much in chronological order. Can you take a look and see if there are any missing? She wrote the date at the top of each entry."

"Of course. Can I ask why?"

JJ responded this time. "I was at William's home today. And I found what looks like one of Diana's journals. I opened it and it looked like her writing, as I remember it. I wanted to take it with me, but our 'chaperone' from the police insisted it had to stay there, since there's not been an official determination of a crime."

"You couldn't just pull rank?"

"Ha. I wanted to but, technically, he was right. Rossi indicated I shouldn't ruffle feathers, so I didn't. Spence will go back there tomorrow to look at it."

"Hmm." Charles was familiar with the journals' role in his son-in-law's life. They'd shown him what his mother had been like as a healthy young woman….someone he'd never met until she'd introduced herself through her writing. And they'd been the primary way JJ had come to know her mother-in-law. "Do you think he kept it as a memento? Or do you think there's some significance to it?"

"I won't know until I read it. But it would help to know if there's an entire year missing, or if this is just some sort of 'extra' thing. I didn't pay attention to the dates when I read through them." He'd been too emotional about the content.

"All right. Sounds like a project. I'll get back to you when I've gone through them. Please, both of you….take care of one another."

They both smiled at the paternal concern. "Always do. And, Dad, thanks again to you and Mom. We love you."

The connection broken, JJ scooted behind her husband on the bed.

"Let me rub some of this out." She put her thumbs to work on the knots in his shoulders.

Reid tipped his head in all four directions, giving her better access. "Aahh.."

Behind him, she smiled. "Feels good, does it?"

"Feels amazing. What would I do without you?"

Even though they'd been keeping the conversation light, she could hear the depth of meaning in his words. JJ moved forward and brought her arms around his, hugging him from behind. She rested her chin on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

She moved with him as he heaved a bitter sigh through his chest.

"For my family, this was just a normal day."

"You have a bigger family now, Spence. One that doesn't walk out on one another. We're all healthy, and we're all with you in this."

He lifted one of her hands to kiss the back of it. "Whatever 'this' is. But you know I count on it. On you. On all of you."

Reid stood and repositioned himself back against the headboard, pulling JJ up next to him. He'd always loved feeling the weight of her head against his shoulder. It made him feel grounded. And that was exactly what he needed right now.

She tipped her head up to him. "Tell me about it."

He recited for her all of the conversation they'd had with Ben Yazzie and his daughter, and the bitterness seeped out again.

"His wife, JJ. I don't care if Garcia can't find a marriage certificate. Maybe he didn't bother to make it legal. But, if there wasn't someone he thought of that way, why would he tell the florist that's who the flowers were for?"

"Spence…if there's no record, maybe it was a newer relationship. Maybe he didn't really walk out on you and just move on right away."

"Twenty years, JJ. Yazzie said he'd been in business that long, and my dad had been his customer the whole time."

She gave up. "I don't know. I'm sorry, Spence. And…" She sat up and turned to face him. "I'm sorry that I reached out to him at all. I should have respected that you didn't want him in your life. I just thought…"

He cut her off. "You just thought that he must be like your dad. You couldn't picture anything else…..I know."

JJ's relationship with Charles had always been strong, even when tested around the death of her sister. He'd been faithful to his remaining family, leading them through a time of grief and trial that could have ended them. Instead, it had made them stronger. Meeting him so many years later, Reid had felt the same kind of encouragement from his father-in-law. He'd long ago decided that Charles Jareau should be his parenting role model.

JJ acknowledged it. "You're right. I guess I've seen my fair share of dysfunctional parents, but I've always hoped they had it in them to do the right thing when their kids most needed them."

"Maybe most of them do. Just not William Reid."

She could sense his need to change the subject again. "Tell me about the desert."

He knew she wasn't asking for case details. Morgan had already filled the team in on the situation of the scene, the desolate location, and their discussion about whether it was a dump site or a kill site, and what it all might mean for the profile. Now her husband described for her the feeling of it.

"It's huge. Quiet, except for the wind. Cold. Barren, almost. Just some scrub and a few tumbleweeds. And yet, there's color. The cliffs in the distance…they call it the high desert….they're yellow, but also brown, and orange, and there's even a hint of red. The sand seems to change color whenever a cloud passes in front of the sun. It feels….ancient. Like it's been there forever. And somehow it manages to seem like it's been untouched by humans at the same time that it seems like it holds so much history."

"I was reading about it before you and Morgan came back. The Anasazi, they were called. The ancient civilization."

He nodded. "Yeah. There's a museum here, The Lost City Museum. We should go there sometime."

"Maybe when the kids are older, we can bring them out. They should see where their Dad comes from."

He laughed. "Right. Circus,Circus. That's the Reid side of the family."

"Stop. The Reid side is also the one that appreciates the beauty of the desert, and the night sky. I think you've already passed that second one on to our son."

Reid pulled her back against him. "He does love it. And I love watching it with him. Can't wait to show it to Rosie, too."

"Don't you be keeping her up late. You know she's a bear when she doesn't get enough sleep."

"Speaking of, why don't you try to get some? It's been a long day, and we're three hours past our own bedtime."

JJ eyed her husband. "Why don't I? As if you don't need it?"

"I don't think sleep will be coming my way tonight, JJ. My mind is too active."

"Spence, tomorrow may very well be another difficult day. And a lot of the work will depend on you."

He was already planning to go to his father's condo to read Diana's journal, and then back to the FBI office to stealth-read his father's case files.

"You need to get some rest." Now she looked at him with a sly smile. "I know how to help you relax. What you need is a good dose of endorphins. And I know just how to give it to you."

It turned out she was right. They gave each other that good dose of endorphins and afterward, still wrapped up in one another, they slept.

* * *

_**A.N. Lots of real life commitments the next few weeks, so updates will likely be slower in coming (like this one) than my usual pace. **_


	7. Chapter 7

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 7**

"How did he seem?"

Hotch and Morgan were walking a little behind the others, on the way back from dinner.

Morgan shrugged. "He did his job. I wasn't so sure he'd be able to, when we left the florist. He was pretty thrown at the idea of his dad having married again. Said he'd always wondered about it, but it sounded like he'd convinced himself otherwise. Anyway, by the time we got to the site, he was back on the case."

Hotch was still concerned, and he valued Morgan's opinion.

"Do you think he's repressing?" If so, the genuine emotion might surface at a most unfortunate….and potentially dangerous….time.

"I think he's compartmentalizing. Intellectually, he knows we haven't tied the two cases together. That, actually, we aren't even sure his father is the victim of a crime. So I think he's able to separate his feelings about his dad from the work on the case. At least for now."

Unsaid was the concern that they would learn that William Reid was, indeed, a crime victim. And then his son would no longer be able to maintain the emotional separation.

Morgan continued, "I don't know how he is who he is, Hotch. I mean, every time we learn something new about his father, it points to a guy who ran out on his family, who chose not to stand by a sick woman and a young son. And lived not ten miles away from his son, without ever letting the boy know. Damn it, Hotch. My dad was my hero. He was the person I couldn't wait to tell about my day, about what had gone right, and what had gone wrong. He gave me advice. He played ball with me. He took me fishing. I was devastated when I lost him. But he died a hero. Someone I looked up to. Someone I look up to even to this day. What did Reid have? Nothing! I've never told him this, but I'm amazed that he became the person he did, with his background. I may tease him, but the Kid's pretty damn strong."

Aaron Hotchner had grown up with a love/hate relationship with his own father. He'd admired the man, and craved his approval. But that approval had been hard to win from the stern, sometimes emotionally abusive, Thomas Hotchner. And yet, his sons had both idolized him.

"Sometimes we see who we want to see….and sometimes we see them as they are. At least Reid has a realistic image of his father."

They'd caught up to Rossi and Emily, who had heard the latter end of the conversation.

"My father had a hard time being in the shadows. The spotlight was always on my mother, as the ambassador. People seemed to think that Dad should have loved it, being able to travel, and live in all these interesting places, without any real responsibility. But he didn't. He had a career before Mother got involved in politics. And he gave it up, so she could follow her dream."

"Is that what drove them apart?" asked Rossi. He knew Emily's parents had divorced when she was in her teens.

"No. It was me."

"You?" Hotch couldn't imagine Emily Prentiss coming between her parents.

"He thought I needed a more normal life. And Mother didn't. She thought it was better to live in an 'extraordinary' way. And then…"

She stopped. The only person she'd ever told about her teen pregnancy was David Rossi. She wasn't quite ready to share it with anyone else yet.

Rossi picked up on it. "And then he took you back to the States, to have an idyllic high school experience, right?"

They all laughed, knowing that high school was anything but idyllic for most of its participants.

Emily was still smiling as she continued. "Well, not exactly idyllic. But normal. I made friendships that seemed like they could last beyond the next short term State Department assignment. I went to parties, and the prom. Believe me, as tough as high school can be, it was still better than what I'd had."

"But it hurt your parents' relationship?" Morgan was curious.

"Their dreams were too different. That's what hurt them. They loved each other, I'm sure of that. That's why my dad made the sacrifices he did. But, in the end, they saw different futures, and they couldn't reconcile them with the present."

"What happened to him, Princess?" Morgan said it softly, somehow already sure he knew the answer. After all, she'd never mentioned going to visit him.

"He died when I was twenty-three. I was just out of college, and I'd gone back to Europe, to see it through a 'commoner's eyes'. And he had a heart attack."

"I'm sorry," said Rossi, as though it had just happened.

She gave a sad smile. "It was a long time ago, Rossi. But thanks."

They'd reached the hotel elevator bank, and would soon separate. Hotch went back into unit chief mode.

"We'll meet at the LVFBI office at 0800 tomorrow. Everyone, get some sleep. It promises to be another long day."

On the fourth floor, they fanned out into separate rooms, where each would spend time thinking about the men who'd given them life, and the complicated relationships among human beings. Two of them would remember the moment they'd assumed the awesome responsibility of fatherhood, even if only for a day.

* * *

"Hey, how long have you been up?" JJ rolled to her back and stretched her arms wide.

"For a while, I guess." Reid was running his fingers rapidly down the pages of a thick volume. JJ recognized the attempt at distraction.

"Did you sleep?" He'd seemed relaxed enough last night, after her ministrations.

"For a few hours. You were right…you do know how to put me out." He grinned at her, remembering it.

She returned the expression. "But it didn't last? Spence, you must be exhausted."

He dismissed her concern. "I'm okay. And besides, it's nine AM at home. My body clock tells me I should be at work already."

"Ugh. Not mine. I think I need a run to wake me up."

Her husband just looked at her and laughed. Running for fun had always been, and would always be, anathema to him, and yet his wife craved it.

"Go ahead. I've got this." He held up a mug of steaming coffee. "We don't have to be there until 8 anyway."

JJ slipped from the bed and into her running clothes and shoes. She peeked over Reid's shoulder at the book he was reading. "Anthropology." It was his latest field of study.

"It's actually pretty fascinating. I'm reading about cultural relativism."

"Uh-huh." She weighed the decision of whether to tie her shoes now, or wait until she got outside the door. She could tell Spence was about to expound on something, and she wanted to make sure she'd have time to fit in the run. Decision made, she waited until she saw him take in a breath, and grabbed her shoes.

"See you in a little bit. Happy reading!"

* * *

Hotch had decided to accompany Reid today. He wanted to gauge the young agent's ability to handle the case emotionally. And, in truth, he was curious about William Reid. Like the others, he tended not to hold the runaway father in particularly high esteem. But the senior profiler had simply been in the job too long to ignore the fact that there were at least three sides to every story. He would try to withhold his judgment on the potential victim until he'd allowed William's voice to be heard, by whatever means it would be expressed.

JJ had been disappointed not to go along, wanting to be supportive of her husband. But Hotch's wisdom told him that Reid might process the scene more openly if he wasn't worried about triggering the concern of his wife.

_Although he might be just as likely to try to hide his reaction from me, as well. _

As much as Reid respected his unit chief, he didn't like to look vulnerable in front of him, despite the senior agent's constant demonstrations of support, and even after having proven himself to Hotch so many times in the past. But this case presented a whole new depth of possible emotional involvement, and Hotch wasn't sure Reid would be able to rein it in, even if he wanted to.

As he drove them over to the condo, Hotch glanced across at his passenger, who was staring out the side window.

"How far is this from where you lived as a boy?"

Reid shrugged. "Miles...and worlds. When my father was with us, we actually lived in a neighborhood, with individual houses, and yards. Remem...oh, that's right. Only Morgan and Rossi saw it when we looked into the Riley Jenkins case. He'd lived only a block or two away. Anyway, after my dad left, we moved to an apartment. It wasn't in the best area, and it was pretty small, but that made it easier to keep up."

Hotch chanced another sideways glance before turning his eyes back to the road.

"You took care of it? Was your mother that ill already?"

Reid nodded, slowly. "In spurts. She'd been ill for years, even before I was born. But it progressed, and I think...no, I _know_...that the stress of being left alone made it even worse. She did go on meds sometimes, and they helped a little. But then, you know, she would decide that she was better, and then she'd stop the meds, and then would come the spiral."

"She didn't realize it was the medication that was helping her." A statement, more than a question. It wasn't an unusual phenomenon.

"I think she knew. But she hated how the meds made her feel. She said she felt...blunted...like she wasn't really living her own life. As intelligent as she was, I think the medication may have clouded her judgment. So, she would take the first chance to decide she was cured, and go off the meds...and, when she did, there was no judgment at all."

Hotch was shaking his head throughout Reid's speech. His own son, Jack, was approaching the age when William had left Reid alone with an incapacitated Diana. Like Diana, he was now single-parenting. But, unlike Diana, he was healthy. He simply couldn't imagine abandoning any child to a situation like that, let alone his own son. Couldn't imagine how any adult who'd become aware of it would have left a child essentially on his own.

"So you handled the household? Shopping, cleaning? Paying bills? How did you support yourselves?"

Reid gave a bitter snort. "I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the one thing my dad actually did for us. He made sure Mom was set up with disability. It wasn't a huge amount, but there was money deposited into an account every month, and I wrote checks on it." He smiled to himself. "I became pretty good at forging her signature. Of course, I had to do it for all those notes home from school as well. I had plenty of practice."

"Didn't anyone realize? Didn't the school realize?"

"Oh, yeah, they did. Mom actually went to a couple of parent-teacher meetings when she was taking her meds. And she reamed them out for not challenging me enough. So they kept pushing me up through grades until they ran out of grades. That was about the time she showed up to a meeting as she was coming off meds. When that happened, she didn't quite take care of herself, you know? Didn't shower much, or dress. Didn't even get out of bed for days at a time. So she showed up in her slippers and robe, and they thought she was drunk, and they called social services."

"And?"

"And I heard them gossiping about it in the hallway, so I ran home and cleaned up. And I told the social worker that Mom had gotten sick that day."

"And they believed you." Hotch was too schooled in human behavior to think otherwise. And disappointed that those who looked out for society's children weren't schooled enough.

"They did. Of course, maybe not entirely. There were a few more visits over the next couple of years, but I was always able to cover. And then, I guess they decided I was old enough to take care of myself, or ask for help if I couldn't."

Hotch shook his head again. "I'm sorry." For the child Reid should have been, but was not allowed to be.

Reid shrugged it off. "It was a long time ago, Hotch. If I've learned anything in this job, it's that we all have a story to tell." In a lower voice, he added. "I guess I'm about to find out more of mine."

* * *

Officer Guidry was apparently on chaperone duty again today, and met them once again in the parking lot, using William's not-so-hidden key to gain access to the condo. Reid followed Hotch through the doorway, a certain hesitation evident in his step.

Despite the brief personal contact with his father several years ago, Reid felt like he was entering some sort of chasm chiseled out of his own life. A solidity that should have been there, but wasn't. And now, he realized, he might come to learn if it was worthy of the importance he'd always given it. He was in the strange dilemma of wanting to believe he'd actually missed nothing through the abandonment of his father, while simultaneously still hoping to learn he'd come from better stock.

Hotch held back while his younger colleague wandered about the room, taking in the bookshelves and William's taste in literature, stopping every so often to pull out a volume.

Guidry remarked on it. "You people can really tell that much about a person by what they read? That blonde chick was looking at the books yesterday," he offered by way of explanation.

Hotch furrowed his brow as he saw Reid react to the LEO's comment about JJ. And then breathed more easily when Reid apparently decided not to allow himself the distraction. The young man was, indeed, learning about their subject through his books. And that was too dear a task to be lost to petty annoyances.

But not for Hotch. "I assume you are referring to Supervisory Special Agent Jareau." Making certain to use her full title. "She did report to me on your role in yesterday's assessment."

Sometimes it wasn't necessary to spell things out in words. Guidry could tell from Hotch's tone that no hint of interference or questioning would be brooked today. Another day had gone by with no contact from William Reid. By anyone's definition, he was now officially 'missing'. And what they were examining in his home, could officially be looked upon as 'evidence'.

Reid continued his journey around the three walls of shelves, ending at the area that was vacant of books. Here, he found the collection of photographs and memorabilia, and his eye immediately settled on the photo of his own baseball team, taken so many years ago. He was standing at the end of a row of teammates, in front of William, his coach. And both were smiling.

Hotch read the wistful look on Reid's face, and joined him. "That's you?" There was a definite resemblance between the young boy in the picture and the young man standing next to him.

Reid nodded. "And that's my dad. It's funny. I haven't seen this picture in over twenty years, but just looking at it now brings the day right back to me. We'd lost the playoff game, but the coaches….my dad was one of them….had just promised us ice cream. And that made everything good again. We were…..happy. We were _happy_."

His voice was filled with the regret of knowing what came after. The persistent incredulity that what had been so right had somehow gone so wrong. Wondering whether William had ever really been happy to be with his son, or whether it had all been for show.

Hotch heard Reid's words, and his tone, and all of the unstated questions that were too emotionally charged to be spoken. But he also realized something else.

"He kept the photograph, Reid. Framed. Displayed, where he could see it every day."

The young genius had been too reactive to notice the obvious. As the fact of William's attachment to the photograph penetrated, Reid squinted his lack of understanding.

"But why? Why would he treasure a memory when he could have had the real thing?"

That was the barb that would always hurt. No matter what signs of attachment they might find…..the photographs, the cyber-history of Reid's accomplishments on Williams' computer…..the fact was that he'd preferred a virtual son to the real one. And neither of the BAU men, their own lives so enriched through the love of their own sons, could fathom that.

Hotch could only shrug. "It's just an observation. But it means he still felt some kind of connection. Or wanted to."

_He could have had it any time he asked_, thought Reid. And then felt a pang of guilt when he realized that William _had_, essentially, asked, for several years now. And Reid had simply turned away. But he hadn't asked JJ to do the same. _Was that my way of keeping the possibility alive?_

He could feel the turmoil within, and knew he had to swallow it back down before it began to interfere with his ability to work the case. Acutely aware that Hotch was gauging his emotional state, Reid decided to move on.

"I want to see the bedroom. And the box that JJ found."

"Wait." Guidry spoke up. "Did you just say that the missing person is your father?"

The FBI agents exchanged glances before responding.

"Yes. He's my father." Deciding not to offer any further information.

Guidry had his hand on his radio, ready to call his superior. But he addressed a question to the senior FBI man first.

"How can you let him work this case, when he might be a suspect?" Knowing that domestic disputes were often at the root of missing persons cases, and even homicides.

Hotch gave the furrowed brow stare, fully intending any intimidation it might engender in Guidry.

"Call your Lieutenant, if you like. Agent Reid is not a suspect in this case. He was two thousand miles away when Mr. Reid went missing."

Guidry wasn't so sure now. Hand still on his radio, but having not triggered the call button, he said, simply, "Still…."

Reid was anxious to get at the journal he knew was in William's closet. "If it would make you feel better, you can come and watch me. You can even record my actions. But I'm going to the bedroom now."

He started down the hall, leaving Guidry no option but to follow. When the officer left the living room, Hotch pulled out his own phone and hit a button.

"JJ. Have our Vegas office run the paperwork. We'll need a warrant to take materials from William's condo...….No, nothing new. Not yet, anyway. But LVPD is aware of the relationship, and questioning whether Reid should be involved…...No, that's right. Technically, it's not a problem. But I don't want anyone second guessing down the road. So let's make it official...…He's all right…...Not yet, he just went to look at it now...….All right…...Yes...…and, let me know when the paperwork is ready."

He closed the call and moved down the hall. As he turned the corner into the bedroom, he first spotted Guidry, an astonished look on his face. And then followed the officer's eyes toward where Reid was sitting on the bed, holding a volume that appeared to be composed of handwritten script. The young genius was flipping pages at a mind-boggling pace.

When his peripheral vision caught the movement of his superior entering the room, Reid looked up at Hotch with troubled eyes.

"It's definitely one of her journals. And it's about Riley Jenkins."


	8. Chapter 8

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 8**

"Were you able to tell anything?"

Charles Jareau could hear the stress in his son-in-law's voice.

"Well, it looks to me like your mother used one or two volumes per year. I'm guessing that might have depended on how well she was feeling?"

On the other end of the connection, Reid sighed. "Probably. But not in the way you would think. I noticed, when I read through them before, that she was pretty prolific when she was most deluded. I think she believed she could be heard through her journals, in a way that she couldn't when she spoke."

He couldn't see Charles' nod of understanding. "So she got it out of her system by writing."

"Yes. And, somehow, I think she really thought people would believe her if it was on paper. Like it made it more legitimate. But that just shows how poorly she processed things. She wrote like someone else would read her journal. But I think I'm the only one who ever did, besides herself."

Although now he realized that someone else _had_ read at least one of those journals. William Reid. His father. Who'd taken one of them, and kept it for over twenty years.

"All right. Well, it's hard to tell if something is missing, since I can't go by the number of journals, and she didn't consistently record a date." Charles sounded frustrated about not being able to help.

"Don't worry about it. It's probably not that important. It's just….. I remember, when I read through them, thinking that she'd been too upset during the time of this particular journal. I noticed the incident was missing, but I assumed she'd chosen not to write about it. Now I have evidence to the contrary."

"Spencer, if you have the missing journal, why do you need me to go through the rest?"

This was hard to explain, but Reid knew instinctively that it was important. He needed to understand if his father had taken the journal at the time Diana was writing it, or at some later date. If the former, it might mean that William realized she'd written something that might implicate one or both of them in the crime that followed Riley Jenkins' murder. It might have meant he was being protective of Diana….or maybe he was just being protective of himself.

Reid wasn't at all sure, now, if he should have believed his parents when they'd banded together to tell him the story of what happened after Riley's killer was murdered. _She was so easily influenced. Maybe he made her lie to me._

If William had taken the journal much later, it might mean something very different. What, exactly, Reid didn't know. _I doubt it was a memento of a marriage he couldn't wait to escape._ _Could he have been trying to protect her from being upset, if she read through it? Could he have been trying to protect me? _Reid rejected the latter thoughts outright. They didn't jell with his image of William.

He tried to give Charles a sanitized version of what he was thinking.

"I just need to figure out if he might have taken it close to the time she wrote it. If he did, there will be a substitute journal that seems out of synch with the others, like she had to start it over. If he took it a long time after she wrote it, there won't be any gap in her writing."

"You weren't able to tell, when you read through the journals before?"

"I knew there was a period of time she hadn't written about. I just thought she'd been too upset to write then. It never occurred to me that there might be a journal missing."

JJ and Reid hadn't shared the Riley Jenkins episode with her parents. There hadn't seemed a need to, and it was a generally traumatic memory for Reid to revisit. Still, his very perceptive father-in-law sensed the emotional tension in the young man.

"Son, I don't know the context of the missing information, but it's obvious that it's important to you. Now that you have the missing journal, just remember that it holds only words. It's hard to take things out of context. Try not to read anything into them that your mother may not have intended."

Reid was more grateful than his powerful vocabulary could ever express to have Charles Jareau in his life. That the man treated him as a son, and not simply as his daughter's husband, was a completely unexpected gift, and one he treasured. Now he thanked Charles for the fatherly advice.

"I know, you're right. I'll be careful about it. It's just….."

The older man understood. "It's just that you need to use every available tool to find your father, I know. I'm sorry I haven't been of much help."

Reid rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, frustrated. He knew it would have been much easier for him to look through the other journals himself, but that wasn't an option just now.

"You're helping enough. Maybe if you could just look at the first entries in each one, you'll notice something. I'll finish reading through this one to see if it tells me anything new."

"All right, Spencer. I'll get right on it."

"Char….Dad? Are the kids there?" Reid still wasn't used to the eponym.

Charles heard the need in Reid's voice and understood. He sounded regretful when he answered. "I'm sorry, Spencer. Sandy took them to the park. She wanted to let me concentrate."

Despite being disappointed, Reid smiled. "Are you saying that somehow my children cause a lack of concentration?"

Now Charles laughed. "If not by their good looks, then by their volume. I swear Henry is teaching Rosie that the only setting on the loudness meter is 'high'."

The kids' father chuckled. "Yep. Those are my kids, all right. Tell them we'll call them tonight, okay?"

"Will do. I'll get busy with the journals again now, and call you if I find anything."

"Thanks…Dad."

* * *

Reid's pace was considerably slower than his usual 20,000 words per minute, as he pored through Diana's missing journal. He kept getting mired in her handwriting, which was reflective of the turmoil of that time.

As he'd read through the other journals a few years ago, Reid had been able to tell, even before the words turned to expressions of fear and paranoia, that they were about to. Diana's customarily fluent penmanship would become interrupted, the letters angular, the volume of ink erratic, as she pressed her pen more deeply into the paper_. It's the written version of staccato speech_, he'd thought, recognizing one of the external symptoms of mental illness.

The writing had often changed up to a week before the delusions began. And it wouldn't settle back into its usual pattern until well after the delusions were gone. It was one of the ways Reid had come to better understand the extent of his mother's internal battle. He'd been very aware of its external manifestation. That, he'd lived with all his young life. But he'd not quite understood the internal struggle that preceded and followed each delusional episode.

_No wonder she was so exhausted all the time_, he'd thought when he'd first read through the books. _No wonder she couldn't get out of bed. _In his adulthood, he'd felt the guilt of the young boy who'd chided his mother so often about this behavior.

The 'Riley Jenkins journal', as he'd come to think of it, was comprised almost entirely of the troubled penmanship. Between that, and Reid's own emotional connection to that time, both in his childhood and his adulthood, he was moving through it at a frustratingly slow pace. He was only about a quarter of the way through when JJ returned to the precinct, Morgan right behind her.

"Hey….is that it?" She tipped her head toward the book.

"This is it. I can't believe I didn't realize there was a journal missing. I'd always just assumed she was too upset to write about it."

"How far did you get?"

When he didn't answer right away, JJ became concerned that he'd discovered something they hadn't known about before. "Spence?"

His shoulders went up and down with a large inhalation and exhalation. "I'm not even up to Riley yet. Just…you know, she told me about this, but she dismissed it so quickly. I didn't even think to question it. But…well….she used to take me to the park, when she was having good days. When I was younger, there were a lot more days like that. And my dad used to be happy about it. I remember that. I think he thought she was taking me to play on the playground or something. But she wasn't. She'd bring me over to this area that had a few tables with chessboards, and we would play against each other."

He smiled, remembering something, and JJ asked him about it.

"It was just…she was this expert in medieval literature, you know? And she was teaching me chess. She said that it was really my dad who should be teaching me, because his side of the family was so good with math and science. But he wanted me to be 'normal'. He insisted I do the usual kid things. That's why he got me into Little League. And I guess he stayed in it himself."

"Didn't he realize your intelligence?" She'd spent many an hour trying to form an accurate picture of the young Spencer Reid, and what he must have been like as a child. She'd been especially devoted to the task since Rosie had come into their lives.

"He did. And he respected it, I think. But….I don't know, but I've wondered. For such a long time, I only knew that he had a brother, and then his brother died. I didn't know…not until we were investigating this case," holding up the journal, "that Uncle Daniel had committed suicide. They found him in the desert, with a gunshot wound to his chest. That's all my Mom told me. I don't remember him, really, but I remember them talking about him. How he was a genius himself, how he had so much potential. And then he killed himself. So I wondered if Dad worried that I would be like him."

JJ nodded slowly, taking it in. "And he tried to make sure you weren't. So it was your Mom, the medieval lit professor, who taught you chess."

He snorted. "Exactly. And she turned it into a kind of story every time. What the knight would do to protect his queen. How the king would send his pawn to sacrifice his life."

"Chess as medieval drama?"

"Technically, I think it was allegory. And yes, that was Mom. She made everything different….better…when she was healthy."

It was so rare to hear him recount any happy memories of his childhood. JJ savored the moment.

"So she was responsible for your love of chess?"

"Mm-hmm. I guess I probably would have found it anyway, but she got me started."

"And Gideon taught you to master it." JJ remembered their former colleague's delight in teaching, and especially in besting, his protégé.

Reid shook his head. "I think I was mostly self-taught. It was just different with Gideon. With my Mom, it was all about saving the King and Queen, and the relationships among all the pieces. With Gideon, it was all about the checkmate—it was all about the kill."

As soon as she heard him say it, she recognized the truth. The relationship between Gideon and Reid had always put her on edge, and he'd just put words to part of the reason why. Gideon's investment in Reid had been egotistical, not emotional. And the relationship between the two had never been entirely healthy. Just as the relationship between Reid and William. Which brought her thoughts back to the issue at hand.

"So, did you talk to Dad?"

Reid explained the situation with Charles. "He'll call me back if he figures anything out. I just wish I could look at them myself. I think I'd know, now that I know to look for it."

"Does it really make all that much difference, Spence?"

He knew what she meant. He had the 'missing' journal, and the information it contained, after all. But, for whatever reason, he felt like he needed to understand the circumstances of William having taken it, and, it seemed, hidden it. Like understanding would tell him something about the man his father was. _ Is_, he corrected himself. _We don't know that anything's happened to him. Remember that, genius._

Instead of answering, he changed the subject. "How did it go with the victim's daughter?"

"Okay, I guess." JJ and Morgan had met Davidovitch's daughter at his home. "She didn't seem as upset as I might have thought, considering what happened to her father. But they weren't all that close, according to her."

"I'd say that was true, considering she hadn't even spoken to him in the past six months." Morgan brought his cup of coffee over and joined them.

JJ defended the young mother. "Well, her father was retired, wasn't he? He could have gone to see her at any time. And she was pregnant, he shouldn't have expected her to travel to him."

"I didn't get the sense that she was all that broken up about not seeing him, did you?"

JJ considered it. "No, I guess not. It was more like she realized it was the holidays, and she hadn't gotten the usual gift. But I had the sense that she felt a little guilty, thinking that she hadn't even noticed he was missing."

"For all we know, he wasn't. We only know that six months ago was the last time any of our current witness list can say they saw him or spoke with him."

JJ shook her head. "What a lonely life. To be so…..inconsequential…..that no one notices whether or not you're there. No one even thinks about you."

Just after she'd said it, she realized she'd used the word Rossi had used to describe William Reid. _Inconsequential_. And she made a personal vow that, should it not already prove to be too late, she would never let those words apply to her husband's father again.

_Even if Spence thinks he's not ready. We can't let it happen to someone in our family, black sheep or not. You'll be glad about it one day. Won't you, Spence?_

In her peripheral vision, she could see Hotch hurrying over, phone in hand. When he reached them, he seemed to hesitate a moment, looking back and forth among his profilers. Finally, he seemed to settle on a decision.

"Morgan, Reid…I need you in the field. Another set of remains has been found, also in the desert, about ten miles from the original victim's."

JJ opened her mouth to volunteer, to save Reid from what he might see. But Hotch preempted her.

"I need the two of you to compare the location with where the other body was found. I'm sorry….."

"It's all right, Hotch. I can do it."

Morgan was impressed that Reid's words sounded convincing. But, just in case, he sent his unit chief a look before leaving.

_I've got him._

* * *

**_A.N. Still over-committed for another couple of weeks. If you're still reading this, thanks for hanging in there..._**


	9. Chapter 9

**A Voice Cries Out **

**Chapter 9**

"Hotch, do you really think…." JJ whirled to face her unit chief as she watched her husband leave with Morgan.

"I have no choice, JJ. I need his eyes on the location. Especially his. He knows the desert better than any of the rest of us."

"But, what if….."

"I gave him the option to walk away from this case, and he refused it," Hotch started out sternly, but then quickly deflated, acknowledging his shared concern. "Morgan will be there for him, if he needs support."

"But couldn't I…"

He gave her a meaningful look. "I think you already know the answer to that."

She did. Reid would have an easier time maintaining a professional stance if he didn't have his wife at his side to support him. It was a paradox unique to their particular situation.

Acknowledging the truth, JJ sank into the chair vacated by her husband.

"I guess I may as well finish what he started then."

She picked up Diana's missing journal, and offered a brief plea to her absent mother-in-law before she began to read the words the woman had written so long ago.

_I promised you I would take care of him. But now I need you to do the same. Please._

* * *

Prentiss and Rossi arrived to the strip mall that housed the law office of missing tax attorney Max Maxfield well before any of the local establishments were open. They'd wanted to watch the employees arrive, and get a feel for the environment, before probing them on their employer.

"Okay, you can thank me now," said Emily.

"Thank you?"

"For insisting we stop for coffee on the way. This is a sleepy town at this hour of the morning."

Rossi laughed. "That's just because it only quieted down a couple of hours ago. If New York is the city that doesn't sleep, Vegas is the city that sleeps in."

Emily chuckled at that. "Sounds like my kind of place." She took a sip of her coffee before inquiring. "Do you have a gut feel about this? Do you think this guy is the victim?" They'd been advised of the newly found body in the desert.

Rossi shook his head. "I'm not sure. I don't think we can assume anything. I don't even think we can assume he's a victim at all. These tax attorneys out here…..they're a dime a dozen, and they're not all legit. There's a better than even chance that he's just run off with someone's fortune."

Emily took that in, and continued sipping as she watched a few of the emporia begin to open.

"What do you think about Reid's dad, then? Is he a money-grubber, or is he legit?"

Her companion shrugged. "Hard to say. He seemed to be involved with city government…..he thought we were there investigating something to do with the mayor's office, a few years ago…..so….."

"So that could either make him more likely to be legitimate….or he's into another type of scheme."

"Exactly. He didn't seem particularly put off or surprised that the FBI was at his door, even before he realized we were there with his son."

"So, do you think he was expecting to be investigated, back then? For completely different reasons?"

"He definitely gave off that vibe. But after we cleared up that he wasn't involved in the Riley Jenkins murder, or the one that followed, I never thought to check on it."

Emily was lost in thought for another moment. "I'll bet Reid did. I'll bet he made sure to know everything about his father after that."

"Reid didn't know. He wasn't with us when his dad mentioned it. Unless Morgan told him, I don't think he knows."

"Don't you think he should know now?" Emily had already reached for her phone.

Rossi waved her hand down. "Not now, my friend. I'm afraid he may have much more on his mind just at the moment."

* * *

"Dehydration?" Reid spoke his surprise into the speaker of his cell. "Are they sure?"

Before Hotch could answer, Morgan shouted from the driver's seat, "Isn't every dead body found in the desert dehydrated?"

Hotch had been as surprised as his teammates to hear the ME's report on the cause of death of Stephen Davidovitch.

"The ME said it showed up in the internal organs. Shrinking and discoloration of the kidneys, damage to the bladder."

Reid was still having trouble taking it in. "Could he say if the tongue was removed before or after he died?"

Just because the cause of death was dehydration, he didn't want to assume there hadn't also been an assault beforehand.

"He thinks the tongue was severed first. Obviously, the heart was removed afterward." Or else its removal would have been the cause of death.

"He _thinks_ it? He isn't sure?" Reid realized it as a crucial point of information.

"He's not willing to commit on that. The external dehydration of the tongue, and the damage from the sun, make it hard for him to be sure."

They didn't need to discuss it. All of them knew that the removal of the tongue before the victim's death made it a homicide. The removal after death made it the mutilation of a body...the body of a man who might have wandered into the desert on his own, and met an unfortunate fate. Or the body of someone who might have been brought there, and left to die. But they would have a much harder time proving the latter.

Reid shook his head in frustration, but didn't express it to his unit chief.

"All right. We're just about to be out of cell range. We're meeting up with Trooper Bell again, and he'll take us to the site. We'll get back to you as soon as we're back in range."

"We're good here, Hotch," added Morgan, by way of signing off…and sending an additional message to his unit chief.

Reid let a few miles go by before remarking, "You don't have to look out for me, you know."

Morgan threw him a look.

"I know." _Right._

* * *

'_There are so many things that can hurt a child. My child. My heart. Increasingly, I realize that I'm one of them. But not today. Today I found my poor boy with a much more immediate danger. I knew it, somehow. I could sense it. I literally ran to the park. I must have looked like a wild woman. But I knew, with every fiber of my being, that Spencer was in trouble. I feel like I have that kind of connection with him, and I often wonder if he feels it about me. I prayed with every step, that he would be there, safe and whole, when I arrived. And he was. God is so often turning His back on me these days. But not today. Spencer was there, at one of the chessboards, playing against a young man. _

_At first, I looked around for the danger, not understanding. But then it came to me. The danger was sitting at the board with him. That young man's eyes gave him away. So lurid. And looking at my son that way. My son! I know I frightened Spencer, but I couldn't see another way. I grabbed him by the hand and ran him out of the park, and all the way home. The poor thing. He looked so lost, and confused. He's such a smart little boy, I know he's aware there's something wrong with me. If my behavior hasn't told him, the loud disagreements with William must. What will become of him? Of me? Of us?'_

JJ lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. This particular journal was so filled with crisis and emotion that it was taxing just to read through it. _How can she have lived it? And Spence!_

The implication of Diana's writing was clear to anyone who knew the succeeding history. The pedophile who'd abused and then killed Riley Jenkins had targeted Spencer Reid first.

_Who knows what might have happened if she hadn't had that intuition, and acted on it?_

JJ's entire life would have been different. She wouldn't have had Reid in it, nor Rosie. Nor the kind of love she'd never even known to wish for. _Thank you, Diana._

JJ brewed herself a cup of tea and then returned to the conference table, intent on finishing her reading. But she was disturbed by the vibration of her cell.

"Dad? Hi."

"Hello, Pumpkin. How's my girl today?"

_Glad she didn't put you on speaker. Pumpkin._ But JJ was actually fond of the name, and touched that her father still used it.

"I'm good, Dad. What's up? Something with the kids?"

"The kids are fine. We sent Rosie to Karen's, so your mother could do some grocery shopping, and Henry's at school. I called because I think I found what Spencer wanted."

"Oh, in the journals. You found evidence that one was interrupted?"

"Yes. It was buried about twenty pages in…..I hope Spencer doesn't mind that I read that much of it."

Charles Jareau was already very fond of his son-in-law, but had gained a deepened respect for the young man after Diana's journals had given him a glimpse into the nature of the young life Spencer had weathered.

"Of course not, Dad. He asked you to look through them. "

"All right. I just didn't want to be invading his privacy….."

"His life…and his Mom's….are part of our history together, Dad. He's okay with it. I think he kind of wishes you'd met her. I know I do. Even when she was ill, she was impressive."

Thousands of miles away, Charles smiled. "I definitely get that. And I'll look forward to learning even more about her."

An idea started to form in the back of JJ's mind, but she squelched it. _It's not the right time._

Aloud, she said, "So what did you find?"

"She makes a reference to her mind becoming a sieve. And to some blackouts she'd been having. This is all part of a passage she wrote explaining why she had to start a new journal. But it reads like she thinks she might have actually destroyed the missing one."

JJ was surprised at that. "She doesn't just think she lost it? She thinks she destroyed it?"

"I can't be sure, because some of her writing is rather confused at this point. But it almost sounded like her husband chided her, reminding her that she'd destroyed the journal."

JJ was quiet a moment, taking it in. It was sounding like William had taken, and hidden, Diana's journal, and then tried to convince her she'd purposely gotten rid of it. Almost like he was gaslighting her. _But…why?_

She sighed. "All right, Dad, thanks. I'll tell Spence when he gets back." This wasn't quite something for a phone conversation.

"How is he, Honey?"

"I'll have to let you know, Dad. Hotch sent him out with Morgan. They found another body."

Charles had the same reaction his daughter had, hours before.

"Why didn't…."

She gave the same answer Hotch had given her. "He needed Spence to look at the site. He'd been at the first one, and he's more familiar with the desert than the rest of us." Even if he'd been a city boy most of his time in Vegas.

Charles' voice reflected his concern and regret. "Please tell him we're pulling for him. Tell him we're all praying hard."

She smiled, knowing it was true. "Thanks, Dad."

JJ had barely ended the call when Hotch came back into the room, holding his phone in his hand.

"I'm with JJ now. Go ahead."

The quality of Reid's voice told them he was just barely in range of a cell tower. It kept going in and out.

"….not him. It's not my dad."


	10. Chapter 10

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 10**

"It was the same mutilation. Part of the tongue was missing, and it looked like there were bite marks."

Reid's words were clearer now, as he and Morgan made their way back to the precinct.

"What about the heart?" Hotch wanted to be certain how much of the first body's condition had been signature.

"Gone. But no tissue left behind, so we don't know if the unsub was eating it. The evidence guys at the site thought this body was fresher than the last one, but the weather might still have an effect on the pathology."

JJ directed her voice at the speaker on Hotch's phone. "Any ID?"

Morgan took that one. "In his pocket. Wallet had a license that belongs to Jerome Farrell."

The other missing IRS employee. They definitely had a serial on their hands, and it seemed that the likely connection among his victims had to do with taxes. But they still couldn't tell if he was only going after the IRS, or if he might have been including others who worked in a related field, like their two missing tax attorneys.

"All right," said Hotch. "Come back in. We'll give the ME time to work, and Reid can get back to the journal."

JJ cleared her throat to interrupt her unit chief. She looked an apology for insubordination as she spoke. "Actually, maybe I can finish the journal and summarize it for Spence. Don't we need him to work with Garcia to look at his father's cases?"

Neither man remarked on it, but both Reid and Hotch realized she was trying to divert her husband's attention from something that might be emotionally taxing for him. Both respected her for it, and both trusted her judgment.

"Good idea," they said, almost simultaneously.

* * *

Following up on Rossi's first meeting with the man, Emily and Rossi gave Garcia the task of looking into whether William Reid's law firm, or the man himself, had ever been part of an investigation into political wrongdoing.

"Make that any kind of investigation at all, Garcia." Prentiss amended the instruction.

"Will do, my doves."

As they waited, the two profilers watched the strip mall come to life. When more than an hour had passed with no sign of life at Max Maxfield's law office, they began to wonder if they'd come on a fool's errand.

"Didn't they tell us the office was still open, even though Maxfield was missing?"

"Well," Rossi was sardonic, "there's 'open' and there's 'open'."

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning 'when the cat's away, the mice will play'."

Emily frowned. "Well, aren't you just a bundle of adages this morning."

Rossi tapped his temple. "The wisdom of age. Look at where we are. We're at a law office in a Vegas strip mall. Better yet, a tax lawyer's office. In Vegas. Where the bulk of his clientele were probably seniors trying to stretch their retirement dollars, or gambling addicts trying to write off debt. This guy Maxfield was probably barely getting by, and this was all he could afford. Whatever help he had in the office is probably phoning it in from their new job. At the very least, they'll be taking their time opening the door."

Emily considered that for a moment. "You're probably right. Except for one thing. If he's been gone for three months already, how can they still be paying rent on this place, let alone paying someone to keep the office open? Where's the money coming from?"

"Exactly what we need to find out." Rossi opened his phone and hit a speed dial number. "Penelope? We have another job for you."

* * *

When the two men returned to the precinct, Morgan went to join Hotch in a meeting with the leader of a newly formed task force, while Reid sought out JJ in the conference room.

"Bad, huh?" He asked, without preamble.

She knew exactly what he meant. "Nothing you don't already know about. But I thought it wouldn't be all that helpful to read through it just now."

He got it. "You want me to keep my head in the game, right?"

She smiled. "Right. And there will be plenty of time to go through it after."

_After the case is over. After we know if William is dead or alive_. Both sets of thoughts had gone in the same direction at once.

Reid heaved a deep breath. "All right. I guess I'll call Garcia and get busy on the cases."

JJ leaned up and kissed him, grateful for his trust in her, so securely placed. "I love you. In case you didn't know."

He turned the other cheek and pointed at it. "I think I need more convincing." Which she provided.

* * *

"It was Tammy, wasn't it?"

"It was Tawny. Her name was Tawny."

Rossi couldn't be sure if Prentiss was rolling her eyes at his getting the name wrong, or at the very name itself. But then he heard her add, "It should have been Bleached Blondie." And he was sure.

He smiled at his brunette colleague. "You have something against blondes? JJ's a blonde", he pointed out helpfully. "So is Garcia."

"But they have brains. This one….she was the stereotypical gum-smacking secretary of every bad detective novel." Emily Prentiss hated when anyone lived up to a bad stereotype.

"Ah. Well, stereotypes get developed for a reason, don't they?"

"Yeah. Reasons like Tawny. So, what did you think?"

"I think that, even if Maxfield is into something he shouldn't be, he hasn't shared it with her."

"I agree. Not that I think she could understand it, even if he did tell her."

"Hmm. I think we're gonna have to look at the books. If there's been an allegation against him, there's probably a warrant that makes his records available. And we can talk with the people who think he ran off with their money."

Emily realized there was a limitation as to how helpful that would be.

"We can talk to the people who complained to the police. But what about if there's a client who decided to leave out the middleman and take things into his own hands?"

Rossi nodded his acknowledgement. "For that, we'll need to dig into the records. Good thing we've got a speed reader on our team."

* * *

"Okay, sweet genius, I'll have you into their system in just a few more clicks. As I expected, they've put an extra security alert on there, and I can keep it quiet for a few loops, but that causes is to eat more CPUs, and that triggers another alert in the system, so…."

"I understand, Garcia. I need to be fast. Thanks."

They'd figured out that, if he used a tablet to read through the records, he could employ the fingering technique that helped him read books at 20,000 words per minute.

A smile crossed JJ's face as she watched him, hunched over in his chair, tablet in hand, a warrior prepared for the type of battle that only he could wage. _My hero._

"Three, two, one….here we go!"

They were in the system. Garcia did some initial probing, and found the cases primarily handled by William, starting with the most recent date. Reid would go backwards with them for as long as Garcia felt it was safe, and then she would break the link. They would repeat the process as often as necessary.

JJ eased away from her husband and left the conference room, closing the door softly behind her. She put a finger to her lips when she saw Emily and Rossi heading her way.

"Shh. He's just getting going."

Emily watched through the window, her usual look of amazement at the skills of Spencer Reid evident on her face.

"How's he doing? Thank God it wasn't his father." They'd been alerted in the field.

"He's doing. I think it helps him to be busy."

Rossi grunted. "Well, then, he can thank us. We just found another office full of records for him to read through."

He explained their meeting with Tawny at Max Maxfield's office, ending with, "and Agent Prentiss found her too….blonde…for her taste."

"What! I did not! She was just too…..you know," she shrugged, "…._bleached _blonde."

JJ couldn't keep up the mock indignation. She'd joined her friends in laughter when Morgan and Hotch approached them from across the precinct's main room.

"What's the joke?"

"Nothing." In triplicate.

"All right, be that way. How's Pretty Boy doing in there?" Morgan nodded his chin in the direction of the conference room.

"He just got started. Garcia doesn't think he'll be able to stay in all that long. She found another security alarm installed since yesterday. She's pretty sure they know we want to look."

Emily didn't understand the reluctance on the part of William's office. "I thought they liked him over there. Why wouldn't they want to help?"

Morgan's background in law helped him understand. "They're more worried about their clients suing them for violating lawyer/client confidentiality. On the other hand, the office could always just let the security lapse for a little bit, and let us in, and no one would have to be the wiser."

Hotch responded to that one. "I had the sense the senior partner is the one insisting on it. It seems he's a bit of a stickler…."

"Or maybe he's not such a fan of William," suggested Rossi.

Hotch agreed with his old friend. "He may well be trying to protect some information. But I didn't get the sense he would offer to do anything to protect William."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, JJ watched as Reid sat back and closed his tablet. Obviously the connection had been broken. She knocked softly before entering the conference room.

"So…..how did it go?"

Reid rubbed at both eyes with his thumb and middle finger.

"I got through six months worth of files. He didn't seem to have any cases in common with either of our two IRS victims, and I didn't see Maxfield's name anywhere. There were some family disputes described in a few files…heirs fighting over an estate tax, or a refund. But no disputes directly with my dad. Although…well….there was one kind of odd thing."

"What?"

"It was a scanned document. It looked like it should have come from one of the family feud cases, but it was in its own folder. It was a note that said, "It happened before. It can happen again. Remember that." It just didn't seem to fit in with the other information in that file."

"Sounds vaguely threatening. Do you think it was directed at your dad?"

"That's the thing. It's hard to say. It would have made sense in one of the other files, if maybe a family member had received it from one of their rivals. But it didn't seem to be connected to anything. It was just there on its own."

"Hmm, " mused JJ. "And it's electronic. I don't suppose there's any chance they saved the actual note? You know, for prints, or to maybe identify the paper stock."

He shrugged in frustration. "Don't know. And there's not really any way we can ask. We weren't supposed to be looking at it."

* * *

The ME's report was similar to that of the first victim. The cause of death was dehydration, the bite marks on the tongue were human, but did not belong to the victim. But, with the very slightly fresher status of the remains, the ME could be certain that the tongue had been removed before the victim died.

"So it's definitely murder. And we definitely have a serial, " concluded Morgan.

"Could he say how long the body had been out there?" Reid wanted to establish a timeline that included the presumed dates of the disappearances, the deaths, and the discoveries of the bodies.

Hotch had spoken directly with the medical examiner. "As with the first one, the condition of the body made it hard to establish a time of death. He's fairly certain it's been over two weeks, but can't be more specific than that."

Emily sat back as she expelled a breath through pursed lips. "So we can't know if the unsub held them for a period of time before he killed them."

It was a crucial point. Especially if the unsub had taken William Reid. It made all the difference between holding out hope that he could still be found alive, and resigning themselves to the idea that he was already dead.

Reid understood it all too well. His fingers traced invisible circles on the table as he spoke.

"It's funny. I always used to wonder if some of our victims' families wouldn't rather be able to believe that their missing member would come home one day. If it was better not to know. Now….."

Rossi, sitting nearest him, reached over and patted Reid on the back.

"You'll know, Spencer. We'll find him, and you'll know."


	11. Chapter 11

**A Voice Cries Out **

**Chapter 11**

Much of the afternoon was taken up with a meeting of the newly formed inter-agency task force. With the discovery of the second IRS body, and without any confirmed relationship to the missing tax attorneys, the sense of urgency had died down. But the BAU trusted the dedication of their Vegas FBI counterparts, as well as that of the state and local police. The urgency may have waned, but the task force would work every lead, and remain vigilant for more.

For a particular member of the BAU, the sense of urgency continued. When the rest of the task force broke for an evening meal, Reid stood along with them. But then he turned to his wife and whispered, "You go ahead. Get something. I need to see that journal."

Expecting her to follow his suggestion, he'd already started to head in the direction of the conference room. And then he heard, "Oh, no, you don't."

"Huh?"

"Spence, you barely slept last night, and now you haven't eaten a thing all day. Right?"

"We were busy. And I wasn't all that hungry."

Mentally realizing that the inevitable had finally happened…._Yes, I now officially sound just like my mother_….JJ chided him.

"You still need to eat. Your brain needs fuel, doesn't it?" Appealing to what she was sure would motivate him to comply.

She knew her husband well. He went for it.

"Well…..can you bring me something? Or order something in? Really, JJ, I need…."

With a smile, she relented. "I know you do. And I'll order us something for here. I just…"

He knew his wife well, too. "You don't want me to be alone when I read it."

Her eyes were apologetic, while she nodded her assent. "It's nothing new, like I said, but…. I don't know…for me, it was a whole different thing knowing about it, and reading it in your mother's voice. It was like her fear was palpable."

He knew what she meant. It had permeated all of Diana's other journals as well, especially when her illness made its presence known.

"It's okay. I'm glad you'll be here." He squeezed her hand in thanks, and they momentarily went their separate ways. She, to see about nourishment, he, to have another vicarious encounter with his mother.

Alone in the conference room, Reid picked up his mother's hidden journal and, as he had with each of the others, caressed it. She had left so little behind, having been stripped of nearly everything in life by the failing of her brain. The leather-bound books were nearly all he had to remind himself of her.

He closed his eyes for a moment, conjuring a favorite memory….his mother, lying in bed, relaxed, pen flowing over the page. He knew he was only privy to her writing on her good days. On the bad, she banished him from her room. As a boy, he hadn't realized she'd been writing even on those ugly days and evenings. But as a man, he'd come to see that she'd continued to pour out whatever was inside her at the time. Disheveled writing and ink blots, even the occasional ripping of a page, gave it away. But nothing ever quite moved him as much as those pages where there was a thinning of the fibers, a near-transparency that he knew would have been made by her fallen tears.

At William's apartment, he'd bypassed his usual ritual and gone straight for the content, so anxious to know what his father had tried to keep hidden. Now, he opened the book slowly, almost reverently. He'd already been through all of the other volumes. This was the last 'virgin' contact between himself and his mother. It seemed to want to be relished.

JJ came back just as he began turning pages. "I got us some Italian, is that okay?"

He didn't even look up as he mumbled, "As long as I can eat it with a fork, anything is good."

"Are you just getting started?"

"Mm-hmm.."

Correctly gleaning that he wanted to read uninterrupted, JJ found the biographical case file on William Reid and started thumbing through it.

_What a way to 'meet' my father-in-law._

She looked at his official office web site photo, and then copies of the ones that had been taken with his Little League teams. She was poignantly reminded of Henry's new-found love of baseball, and wondered, for a moment, what it would have been like for her son to have learned the game from his grandfather. She even wondered, briefly, if the love of the game might be a genetic trait. And then had to remind herself, not for the first time, that Spence wasn't Henry's biological father. _He may as well be, they love each other so._ But she offered a mental apology to Will, anyway.

JJ looked for evidence of her husband in William's face. _Not his smile. That's more like Diana's. Maybe the eyes? There's a certain intelligence there. _

And, she realized, a certain evidence of burden, one she'd often seen in Spence's eyes in the past, now largely gone. It had faded, achingly slowly, as she and Henry made their way into his life, and then disappeared almost completely when Rosie arrived. Now she only saw it when life became challenging. _Like now. _

She read through the information that had been compiled, much of it by Garcia. The oldest of two sons. Parents died fifteen years ago, within a few days of each other. _Wonder what that was about? And why in the world they didn't seek out their grandson in all of that time._ Resenting them, without even knowing them, on her husband's behalf.

But then she found something that might serve as an explanation. _Oh, no. They lost their son._

Daniel. William's younger brother, a suicide, while he was still in graduate school. So young. _And so violent!_ The COD on the death certificate read "gunshot wound to the head". And then she noticed the location….

JJ raised her head to say something, but became mute when she saw Reid staring out the window, clearly lost in some distant thought. He looked so troubled.

"Spence?"

She had to repeat herself before he responded. "What is it?"

She'd read any number of worrisome things in the journal, but couldn't know what had triggered his reaction.

He lowered his gaze to the table. "The park. The chess boards. I remember. I flashed on it for a moment when we reopened the case…..but now I actually remember. I can see him. And I can remember my mom coming to the park, and pulling me away. I can see him…."

Him. The man who'd sexually abused, and then murdered, Riley Jenkins. And who might well have had his sights set on Spencer Reid before that.

She reached across the table and laid her hand on his. "Nothing happened to you…right? He never got the chance…..right?" Hoping that his reaction was only to what might have been, and not to an actual memory.

"Nothing happened. It's just….. I remember him, now. I remember that I liked him. He treated me like an adult. And even though I was only a little kid…..well, I was so different from the other kids my age….I was grateful for it. I never even thought…"

"How could you? What child would suspect that an adult would do that?"

He nodded. She was right. "But….I thought his treating me like an adult was a good thing. I never even thought it might be for a different reason. And now…..now, I guess I can see how it works. How these guys get into kids' heads. Because he was definitely in mine."

It was a hazard of the business they were in. Any parent might wonder if their child could one day be lured by a predator. But JJ and Reid could actually picture it. They could see the act, and know what followed. And what followed after that. They'd seen too many dead children to pretend otherwise. Now, Reid was saying, he knew exactly what it felt like. Why a child would succumb. And it frightened them once again, for their own children, and all of the others.

JJ's shiver in response to the thought caught Reid's attention.

"We know better. We can teach them. It will never happen." He turned his hand under hers, so he could squeeze her fingers.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Their food had arrived.

"I vote for a nutrition break. What do you say, Spence?"

He really wanted to continue his reading, but he could hear it in her voice. She needed some normalcy just now.

"I say I'm famished. And I am so fortunate to be married to a woman who knows how to order out."

"Ha! I'll never be as good at it as Emily," she said, acknowledging the team's take-out queen.

She spooned spaghetti and meatballs onto a couple of plates, and then filled the empty space with salad.

"Wish I'd ordered some wine to go with it."

Reid gave her his best attempt at a leer. "Are you trying to ply me with liquor, Madam?"

"I wish. For now, I'll ply you with pasta. But when we get back to the hotel, all bets are off."

Both of them dug into their meals, JJ with a bit more gusto than her husband. The case was definitely taking a toll on him emotionally and, she thought, there was every sign that it would take a physical toll as well. She decided some distraction was in order.

"Hey," she said, as she cleaned her plate, "do you know what time it is?"

Reid checked. "Almost 5:30." It took a moment to sink in. "Oh! That means it's almost 8:30 at home…..we'd better call."

She smiled. "Yep. Let's see if we can video chat from the computer in here." She went to a desk in the corner of the room. "Oh, great…we can. Come on over."

He joined her in front of the web cam and she punched in their home number. Within seconds, they saw a familiar blond head and heard, "Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!"

"Hey, Little Man!" Both parents responded at once. Then JJ continued, "Where is everybody?"

"Meme and Papa are giving Rosie her bath. I already took mine….see, all clean!" He held up two pristine palms to the camera.

"Ahem…" said his mother, who knew her son well, "what about your feet?"

Henry nearly fell off the seat trying to bring his soles up for the camera. "All clean too, Mommy! Meme 'minded me."

JJ stole a sideways look at Reid. The worry lines were easing from his face, as they did with nearly every interaction with their children. And, as usually happened, his mouth was spread into a wide grin.

"Do I hear the dulcet tones of little Miss Rosie Posie in the background?"

Henry didn't know anything about 'dulcet', but he knew Rosie. "Here she comes."

It seemed like their daughter's face was comprised solely of nostrils, as she came so close to the camera lens and stayed there. "Mama! Daddy! I here!"

Reid made a mental note. _Uses pronouns. That's early!_

Henry was becoming eerily facile with all things electronic. He saw how Rosie's face looked on their parents' screen, and pulled her back.

"Like this, Rosie. You have to sit back, so they can see you."

Adult hands entered the screen now, and situated Rosie on Henry's lap.

"Dad? Is that you?"

Charles Jareau briefly put his face in the camera's sight line. "Yes, I'm here, Pumpkin. How are things going there?"

"They're going. It's a bit slow, but we're making a little progress." None of the adults would say much in front of the children.

"Well, I guess that's good. And Spencer, how are you holding up?"

Reid could almost see Henry's antennae going up. He was a very bright child and, unfortunately, wise in the ways of the world. There was ongoing concern about the effects all of his early life traumas would have on him, but no way to avoid the fact that they'd happened. Without really understanding how or why, Henry had become attuned to the emotions of the adults around him. Whether as a defense mechanism, or for some other reason, he had developed the habit of honing in on those subtle and not-so-subtle conversations. Reid saw that he was doing so now.

"I'm fine," he blustered. "This is a homecoming trip for me." As they all knew, all too well.

JJ picked up the theme. "You know, I've been thinking that maybe we should make a family trip out here some day. Dad, you and Mom might like to see some of the shows. And the kids can see where their dad grew up."

Henry was sufficiently distracted by that. "Can we? Can we, Mom? Daddy, can we go on a trip?" In his enthusiasm, he'd almost dumped Rosie from his lap.

"Yay!" said the youngest Reid, not quite sure what the excitement was about, but happy to partake of it.

Reid laughed at both of the kids. "We'll see. Maybe when this case is over, if we can manage some leave."

"Yay!" Henry agreed with Rosie.

The kids were a little too pumped for bed, so there was no possibility of having an adults-only conversation. Goodnights were exchanged all around, and JJ promised her father another call, later on, "If we can."

"Understood. You take care of each other, all right?"

"We will. You and Mom, too. And please give her our love when she gets back from the Y."

After they'd ended the call, Reid mused to JJ, "Wow, your dad takes up golf, and your mom takes up yoga. Who knows what retirement might have in store for us?"

"Hmph. It better have sun, sand and surf in store, or I'm not retiring."

"Well, Vegas has plenty of sun and sand." He thought a moment more. "Do you really want to bring the family out here?"

"Sure, why not? They've been to Pennsylvania, they've seen my roots. And they know my parents. I'd like them to know something about where their dad came from too. Wouldn't you?"

She couldn't be sure. Maybe his memories were too unhappy. Maybe they were too….private….to be shared. As much as he'd learned to open up, sometimes Spence was still a little like that.

"Well…..sure, I guess. I just….well, what's there in Vegas for kids? I mean, besides Circus Circus?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. We could show them the house where you lived, where you went to school. There are museums, aren't there? And the desert…you probably take it for granted, because you grew up around it. But the desert is…well, it's the desert."

He squinted at her now. "Have you ever been there?"

"To the desert? Well….no, not really. I've seen it, on the ride in from the airport. But I've never actually been in it." She shivered again. "It's a little eerie, isn't it? It's so …big."

He gave her a look. "I thought it was woods. Now you're telling me you're afraid of the desert, too?"

She dismissed the idea. "Not afraid. Just…..intimidated, I guess."

His face told her he'd made up his mind about something.

"For someone who grew up around here, I didn't spend all that much time in the desert. Life was too challenging in town. But that doesn't mean I wasn't there at all. I managed a few trips, mostly on my own. And it was…it was.." his eyes wandered, in search of the right word, "….it was awe-ful. Awe-inspiring. I think it was where I first fell in love with the stars." Now he looked directly at JJ. "I want to share that with you. And I want to share it with the kids."

JJ leaned into her husband and kissed him. "Then let's do it. Let's have Mom and Dad bring them out here, as soon as this case is ov…"

She cut herself off, and looked sheepishly into his eyes, seeing in them the same sense of guilt. They'd both been so caught up in the moment that they'd forgotten. The case being 'over' might very well mean that they'd found William's body. And then the family would be visiting Vegas for a very different reason.


	12. Chapter 12

**A Voice Cries Out**

**Chapter 12**

He bolted awake, his biological clock chiming loudly. After Reid fumbled for his glasses, he could make out the time on the digital clock. 7:13. The morning meeting of the task force was scheduled for 7:30.

He could hear movement in the bathroom, and called out.

"JJ… how long have you been up?"

She walked into their room fastening an earring. "Long enough to have been for a run already, Sleepyhead."

He was already rushing by her, headed for the shower. "Why didn't you wake me?"

She had to raise her voice to be heard over the running water. "I thought you needed the rest. You didn't exactly sleep soundly last night."

He was already toweling off by the time he replied. "But I wanted to talk to Hotch about the desert…"

"Already called him. He wants the team to meet after the task force meeting."

"Did he say anything about me going out there?"

"You, Morgan and Emily."

He stopped in the middle of rubbing his hair dry. "Three of us?"

"He didn't exactly say it, but I got the feeling he's not convinced the cases are related. He wants you and Morgan to go, to compare it to the other sites. And he wants Emily as a fresh set of eyes."

"Does that mean he thinks there might be something to….."

"I don't know. But he knows that you need to put it to rest. So he's giving you the chance. I think we should just be happy about that."

She looked him up and down, smiling. "And, not that I don't appreciate the view, but…..maybe you should put some clothes on."

* * *

His hair paid the price for Reid's being only a few minutes late for the task force meeting. Emily barely concealed a grin at the sight of the dishevelment on top of his head.

The police contingent would focus on following up on any crime scene evidentiary results that were forthcoming, but little was expected to be produced today. They would, therefore, also take on the task of finding overlap in cases between the two deceased IRS agents, and look for any similar connections with either of the missing tax attorneys. Hotch assigned Garcia to be as helpful to those tasks as her electronic network would permit.

JJ and Rossi would compare the dead IRS agents' personal profiles, and then look for any similarities or connections with the tax attorneys. Maxfield's cases were still off limits, but Reid would make another covert entry into his father's case files. But not until he returned from the desert.

As the task force broke to go about their varied duties, Hotch held his team back.

"Short BAU meeting, then we'll get going on our assignments."

Most of them grabbed coffee, and then settled around the conference table. Emily smiled as she watched JJ run her fingers through Reid's hair, in a thinly-veiled attempt to tame it.

Once they were settled, Hotch turned to Reid.

"Do you want to tell them what you found?"

It was actually JJ who'd found it in Diana's journal. Reid had been so distracted by the memory of his near-miss with Riley Jenkins' killer, that he'd glossed over the subsequent item of detail.

"Last night, when I was reading through the journal we found in my father's closet, there was….well, really, JJ noticed it more than I did…..there was a reference to my Uncle Daniel. I don't really have a memory of him, but apparently he died, not all that long before Riley Jenkins did. I had a memory of being at a funeral…I remember asking my Mom about it when we were here on that case….and she told me it had been my Uncle Daniel's funeral I was remembering. Then, when Emily died….."

He stopped, mid-sentence, and threw his eyes in her direction, embarrassed and sorry at having brought it up. She returned a sad smile, regretful at the fact that it had happened.

He moved on without completing the thought. "Well, when I visited my Mom again, we talked about Uncle Daniel. And she told me he'd killed himself. Shot himself, actually, and been found in the desert. I'd forgotten about the desert part of it, until JJ found it in the journal. So, we wondered…"

His voice had begun trailing off, a signal of the fatigue that was already present so early in the day. JJ heard it, and took up the tale.

"We were just curious, really, but …well, we had Garcia dig into it, and…"

"And," came through the speaker phone, "it should surprise no one that, despite the fact that this happened…..oh, a gazillion years ago, and was on scanned paper records…the great Garcia, genie of knowledge, dispenser of detail…"

"Garcia…." Morgan tried to move her along.

"Patience, my sweet bundle of bodaciousness. What I was trying to say was that I found the record of Daniel Reid's death. And the exact location where his body was found."

Rossi wasn't at all sure any of this was relevant. "Why are we thinking an almost thirty year old suicide might have anything to do with our current case?" He looked in Reid's direction. "Not that it's not important, Spencer, but I don't see the connection."

Reid acknowledged it. "I don't know that there is a connection. But we noticed it, and the location…."

Garcia spoke up again. "The location where Daniel Reid's body was found was only two miles from where Davidovitch's remains were, and 1.3 miles from where the second victim, Farrell's, remains were found."

Emily agreed with her more experienced friend. "The desert is probably a popular spot for the dumping of bodies, isn't it? I mean, it's so big…..it's not as likely that someone will stumble across a dead body."

Morgan felt the need to remind all of them. "We're not sure the unsub meant for the bitten tongues and missing hearts to be part of a display, or if they were removed as part of a compulsion. So he may or may not have purposely left the bodies near the hiking trail, where they were a little more likely to be found, given the vastness of the desert."

Rossi was persistent. "Whether or not they were meant as a display….I still don't see why we think there might be a connection with Reid's uncle's suicide. Hotch?"

The unit chief was of mixed opinions. "Dave's right in saying there's no overt connection between the old case and the new one," he started.

Rossi interrupted. "Not just that. I'm not sure why we're talking about Reid's uncle as a 'case'. Is there some question as to whether he was actually a suicide?"

Reid and JJ looked at each other, not sure which of them would speak. The decision was moot when Garcia's voice once again came through the phone.

"Actually, he was declared dead of a gunshot wound to the head. But the only gun found at the scene was a shotgun. It would be an impossible shot to make."

Morgan's eyes were on Reid as he spoke. "Not if he had long arms like Pretty Boy's."

Reid nodded his understanding. "It sounds like that's what was concluded back then. But I don't know…."

"Well, we can put that to rest, can't we?" Morgan was already pushing his chair back. "There's got to be a shotgun around here."

Rossi was persistent on the lack of connection between the two cases. "Even if we reach a different conclusion about your uncle, Spencer…..why connect the two cases?"

"They're only connected if my dad is part of the current case, I think. Two brothers…..even years apart….with the same remote location involved…."

That spurred an idea in Emily. "Do you think maybe it was a place they went together? Your father and his brother, I mean. Do you know if they were hikers?"

Reid gave a helpless shrug. There was no way to know, now. Diana and Daniel were both dead, and William was missing. Except…

Emily responded to her own question. "We can ask Dorothy Ricks, your dad's office manager. She might at least know if he still hiked. She seemed pretty close to him."

Hotch's nod indicated she should make the call just as Morgan returned, shotgun in hand.

"Okay, Pretty Boy, let's see what this looks like in your hands."

"Ahem….." The clearing of JJ's throat reminded her husband of the family gun ethic. _Always check. Always._

Reid opened the gun and verified an empty barrel. Then he tried holding the gun against his body from several different angles. It became clear that even his long arms weren't long enough for a shot to the temple, as had happened with Daniel Reid. He could have accomplished a shot to the chest, or the chin, but to put the gun to one side, hold it steady enough and shoot with the one hand from that side, was impossible.

Hotch looked to his old friend to answer a question on all of their minds.

"Dave?"

The gun aficionado understood, and shook his head. "No change in general design or barrel length for at least a century." So it couldn't simply have been another 'size' of shotgun.

Morgan let out a whistle. "So it couldn't have been suicide. Kid, looks like your Uncle Daniel was a murder victim."

It seemed like there was yet another Reid-family-related cold case before them. But without a definite link to the current one.

Emily returned from her conversation with Dorothy Ricks.

"She says he told her once that he used to like to hike, but had a bad experience one time, and stopped. He never said what the bad experience was, but she'd always assumed it was either a fall, or maybe he got lost."

JJ had an idea. "What about Riley's dad? Wasn't he very friendly with your parents? Maybe he could tell us something."

The man had been arrested for the murder of his son's killer. But the courts had been kind to him. He'd served a fifteen month sentence in a minimum security facility, and been released. The fact of his having been in the penal system, however, might make him easier to find.

"Garcia…"

"On it, sir."

Hotch turned his attention back to the rest. "We've got a lot of ground to cover today. Let's get moving."

* * *

As so often happens, the third trip to the desert seemed to go by more quickly than the prior two had. But maybe that was just because Reid had so much information to filter through his mind.

_My uncle was murdered._ He'd seen so many shell-shocked families of murder victims. Now he tried to conjure an image of his parents, in that same situation. _But they didn't realize it was a murder. They thought he'd killed himself. _

He tried to remember his conversation with his mother about it. It had occurred at another time of turmoil in his life, after Emily's 'death'. He wasn't quite as good with recall from auditory input, but if he could visualize, he could virtually replay the scene…..

_*** "You lost your Uncle Daniel when you were four. Do you remember that?"_

_He'd flashed on it during that murder case that hadn't actually involved his father._

_"Vaguely. I can picture it, and I can sort of remember you mentioning his name. But that's all. I don't even know how he was my uncle. Was he your brother?"_

_She gave a wistful smile. "I had long since been put of my family…what little I had. No, Daniel was your father's brother. His younger brother."_

_Funny. In all these years, he'd never even thought about his father's side of the family. As though William's rejection had been made on the part of all of them. Now he began to wonder about the Reids._

_"What happened to him?"_

_Diana shook her head in pity. "It was so sad. So sad. They were so proud of him, and then…." Her voice trailed off._

_"Then? Mom, what happened to him? How did he die?"_

_She looked directly at her son now. "He shot himself."_

_Reid was stunned. He'd thought mental illness only ran on one side of his family._

_"He…. why? Did they know why?"_

_She shrugged. "It was conjecture. He'd been in graduate school….. he was so bright. Not as bright as you, of course. But very bright. He was getting his degree in physics. And then he just disappeared."_

_"Disappeared?"_

_"Yes. He was in school in…. Massachusetts…."_

_"MIT?"_

_"Yes, that's it. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He'd just been home for winter break, but then he'd gone back. Or so we thought."_

_"He didn't?" Reid was starting to feel like he was working a BAU case._

_"Well, we don't know that, do we? The family thought he'd gone back. But he was found here, in the desert just west of here. It was so sad."_

_He didn't understand. "How did they find him?"_

_"A hiker found him, down in a canyon. He was dead. He'd shot himself."_

_"How? Was there a gun?" Still working the case._

_As so often happened, Diana abruptly shifted gears. She was done with this voyage into memory._

_"Well, of course, there must have been a gun. But, my dear Spencer, your Uncle Daniel's was the only death you experienced as a boy. It's no wonder you're having such a difficult time now." ***  
_

And now, he wished he'd pressured her more at the time. It had been murder. And he might have found out about it, if only he hadn't been so rattled about the apparent loss of Emily Prentiss.

_I still had both of my parents then. Maybe I could have helped to solve it. Get justice for Uncle Daniel.  
_

One more piece of fallout from that time of deception among the team. And, maybe, a contributor to the fact that William Reid was now also among the missing. Reid could only hope his father hadn't met the same fate as his brother.

"Hey, you're awfully quiet back there. You okay?" Emily was solicitous.

"Fine. Just…you know, working through things."

She thought she might keep his mind from going to bad places if she worked through those things with him.

"You know, I've been thinking. When we get out there…..what if we try a cognitive interview?"

"With me? About what? I was just a kid."

"Exactly. So maybe it's a distant memory. But maybe, if your dad liked to hike way back when…maybe he brought you out here. And maybe being surrounded by the scenery will help bring the memory forward."

It hadn't happened when he'd gone to the sites with Morgan, but then, they hadn't been using a technique.

"Maybe." But his tone told her he was doubtful.

Morgan spoke up. "You know, Kid, maybe the princess is on to something. What if we tried cognitive recall on your memory of the time your uncle died? You know, the funeral, a conversation between your parents...anything, really."

Reid had to consider it. "I did have that visual image of being at a funeral, but my mom had to tell me whose funeral it was. I don't know. It was a long time ago."

"I know, Kid. And, if it was any other brain but yours, I wouldn't even think it was worth trying. But…"

Reid sighed. They had to get a lead from somewhere.

"All right. We'll try both. The desert first. We'll have to wait on the other. It's too easy to have false memories when the interview covers more than one scene."

Morgan nodded as he turned the SUV onto the off-road portion of their journey.

"One thing at a time."

* * *

"God, it's beautiful. It so huge!"

It had almost become a mantra. Emily had been reciting it ever since they'd left the highway. Behind them, they could still see the tall buildings of Las Vegas, but the rest of the terrain was desert, flatland broken only by equally flat-topped mesa.

"The clouds look like they could actually touch the ground. And it looks like both the earth and the sky go on forever."

"I don't know, Princess. I must be too much of a city boy. Give me civilization any day."

She chuckled. "I didn't say I'd want to live here. I just think it's…..amazing. And there's a lot more color than I thought there'd be."

Reid spoke up. "It's not quite the same kind of view as you'd get in the Painted Desert, but it has thirteen different hues of brown, yellow, orange and pink."

"Looks red way out there, see?" Emily pointed to their right.

"It's a trick of the eye. If you get up close to it, you'll see it's more of a rust color. Mostly brown, with some orange."

Reid may not have spent all that much time in the desert during his youth, but he was as knowledgeable about it as he was about anything else.

"All right," said Morgan, "here's the visitor's station. We're pretty close now. Pretty Boy, can you remember exactly where we were?"

For the first time, they were in the desert unescorted. But Reid's memory served them well, and they found the exact location where the Davidovitch remains had been found.

Emily knew she was there to give a fresh opinion. She began to walk the area, noting the markings left on the ground by the evidence collection team.

"So, it's just a short distance from where a hiker might have left his vehicle at the visitor's station. But we're not sure if the unsub drove the victim here?"

"There were no tire tracks, but there had been a storm. So, no, we can't be sure. But it's unlikely he drove," answered Morgan.

"So, he either transported the body some other way, or they both walked in." She surmised.

"Right," replied Reid. "But we can't know if the victim was under duress, or if he just walked out here with the unsub, without knowing what was planned."

"You know what I _don't_ see?" offered Emily. "I don't see any evidence that the victim was restrained here."

"Restrained?" Morgan didn't understand her point.

"Well, if the cause of death was dehydration, how did the unsub keep the victim here long enough to dry out?"

Reid realized how addled he was by the whole case. They hadn't known about the dehydration when they'd been here before. Still, it should have been an obvious question. And he didn't have an answer.

"Unless he kept the victim elsewhere for long enough to dehydrate him, and then brought him here."

But it didn't sound likely, even to him, and they were all three inclined to reject that scenario.

"So," posited Morgan, "we need to figure out if the unsub had a way to keep the victim here, without water…..how?"

"Could he have drugged him? Or kept him subdued, somehow?" Emily wondered.

Reid wasn't certain. "Maybe. Now that you've pointed it out, I don't see any evidence of stakes in the ground, or even a heavy enough boulder that the unsub could have kept him tied to. But I saw the autopsy report, and there was no evidence of drugs in his system. I suppose it's possible he was drugged early on, then became too weak to move, while the drug metabolized. But I would think the dehydration would have affected the clearance of any drug."

That made sense to Morgan. "So, what are we thinking? That the unsub somehow stayed out here with the victim, maybe threatened him with a weapon, and watched him shrivel?"

Emily shook away the image. "This guy's pretty complex. Organized enough to plan something like that, patient enough to wait for the victim to become debilitated….and then angry enough to carve out his heart, and take a few bites."

Morgan threw a look her way that said, _Take it easy._ She cast her eyes quickly at Reid to see his reaction to what she'd said, and then gave Morgan a nodded assent. Investigating a case with such a close personal connection was going to be challenging.

Nothing else from the site striking Emily, they got back into the SUV and followed GPS coordinates to the place where Daniel Reid's body had been discovered.

Reid exited the vehicle and stood, perfectly still, trying to picture a young man who might have looked very much like him, standing in the very same spot many years ago...moments away from death. So many years later, there was no chance of finding evidence of any sort.

the others gave him a few minutes, and then Emily decided it was time for distraction.

"Okay, Reid, let's see if we can get you to remember anything."

Her words brought him back to the present. The younger man wasn't enthused, but it had to be done. "All right."

She settled him on a small ledge, where he could face out at the desert expanse.

"Okay. Now, you can either close your eyes, or keep them on the distance, whichever you think will work best. All right?"

"Okay."

"Good. Now, take yourself back. You're four years old, and your dad wants to take you on a little trip outside the city. He takes you for a long, long ride in the car….and you see that you're not in town any more. You see the city getting farther and farther behind you…..you see the sand….and the brown colors…..and the blue of the sky…..and the clouds…"

"The clouds….the clouds are in the way….I blow them away…..I want to see…..Dad…Uncle Daniel…..can't see…no blue sky….no…dark, it's dark….too dark…scared.…..but the clouds…..and the wind blows…and…oh, my God…the sky….."

His two fellow profilers exchanged a concerned look at Reid's words. But he didn't seem particularly agitated. Emily asked an unspoken, '_Should I keep going?_' Morgan responded with a '_Why not?'_ shrug.

"What about the sky? Are you frightened?"

Reid had shut his eyes now. "Not frightened…..beautiful…..no clouds…..stars….so many stars….beautiful…holy….."

"You were in the desert with your father at night?"

Reid nodded.

"And your Uncle Daniel?"

"He knows the names…..he can name them all…..but so many…."

"Did something happen that night, Spencer?" Using his childhood name.

"Watched the stars…with Dad….and Uncle Daniel."

She asked a few more times, in a few different ways, but the answer was always the same. Finally, with an agreeing nod from Morgan, she ended the process.

Reid actually shook himself back to the present.

"Kid, you all right? That was more like a hypnosis session than a cognitive interview."

Reid acknowledged it.

"I learned a little bit of hypnosis technique after the last time we were in Vegas. The process helped me a lot then, so I thought it might be useful to have a little skill with it. I just applied it as a little self-hypnosis, while Emily led me."

"Well, I wish you'd thought to tell me. You scared me a little bit there. Like I didn't know my own power."

He smiled in apology. "What did I remember?"

Morgan had thought to voice-record the whole thing, and played it back for Reid.

The young man listened intently. As the recording progressed, his colleagues could see the dawn of recognition in his face.

"Reid?"

"I remember. Sort of. I remember Dad took me out to the desert, and we met Uncle Daniel out here….somewhere. I don't know if it was here. We were going camping. I don't remember how far we walked. I think they carried me part of the way, though. And I remember they wanted me to see the stars. They said it was why they went into the desert….to see the stars."

Morgan nodded, now understanding Reid's recalled concern about the clouds. They would have been in the way.

"So you think you went camping with your old man and his brother….but nothing happened?"

Reid could only shrug. "I guess not. Or else it's just buried."

Emily pointed out what they did know. "At least we made some progress on the connection your dad and your uncle had to the desert. Sort of."

Reid stiffened as another, unwelcome thought came to him.

"My dad and his brother went to the desert together. We know that now. What if they went one time…and only one of them returned?"

* * *

_**A.N. The *** segment, where Diana recalls Daniel's death, is from Prelude. In case it sounded familiar.**_


End file.
